Modern Philosophy: Empiricism, Idealism, and Pragmatism in Britain and America

592 Pages·1994·34.481 MB·English

by  Frederick Copleston, S. I.

A HISTORY
OF
PHILOSOPHY
A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY by Frederick Copleston, S.J.
Volum e I: Gre ece and Rome
From the Pre-Socratics to Plotinus
Volum e II: Medieval Philoso phy
From Augustine to Duns Seotus
Volum e III: Late Medieval and Renaissanc e Philosop hy
Ockham, Francis Bacon, and the Beginning of the Modern World
Volum e IV: Mode rn Philosophy
From Descartes to Leibniz
Volum e V: Mode rn Philoso phy
The British Philosophers from Hobbes to Hume
Volum e VI: Mode rn Philoso phy
From the French Enlightenment to Kant
Volum e VII: Mode rn Philoso phy
From the Post-Kantian Idealists to Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche
Volum e VIII: Mode rn Philosophy
Empiricism, Idealism, and Pragmatism in Britain and America
Volume IX: Modern Philosophy
From the French Revolution to Sartre, Camus, and Levi-Strauss
A HISTORY
OF
PHILOSOPHY
VOLUME VIII
Modern Philosophy:
Empiricism, Idealism, and
Pragmatism in Britain
and America
Frederick Copleston, S.J.
£1
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First Image Books edition of Volume VIII of A History of Philosophy published
1967 by special arrangement with The Newman Press and Burns & Oates, Ltd.
This Image edition published March 1994.
De Licentia Superiorum Ordinis: J. Corbishley, S.J., Vice-Praep. Prov. Angliae
Soc.Jesu
Nihil Obstat: T. Gornall, S.J., Censor Deputatus
Imprimatur: Joseph Cleary, Episcopus Cresimensis, Vic. Cap. Birmingamiae die
25a Junii 1965
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Copleston, Frederick Charles.
A history of philosophy.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
Contents: v. 1. Greece and Rome —[etc.] —
v. 7. From the post-Kantian idealists to Marx,
Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche—v. 8. Empiricism, idealism,
and pragmatism in Britain and America—v. 9. From the
French Revolution to Sartre, Camus, and Levi-Strauss.
1. Philosophy—History. I. Title.
B72.C62 1993 190 92-34997
ISBN 0-385-47045-2
Volume VIII copyright © 1966 by Frederick Copleston
All Rights Reserved
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
13579 10 8642
CONTENTS
Chapter Pa8e
Pref ace ...........................................................................................ix
Ackn ow ledg ment s...................................................................xi
Part I
BRITISH EMPIRICISM
I. The Util itaria n Moveme nt (i) . . . . i
Introductory remarks—The life and writings of Bentham—The
principles of Benthamism, followed by some critical comments
—The life and writings of James Mill—Altruism and the
associationist psychology; Mill’s polemic against Mackintosh—
James Mill on the mind—Remarks on Benthamite economics.
II. The Util itaria n Mov emen t (2) . -25
Life and writings of J. S. Mill—Mill's development of the
utilitarian ethics—Mill on civil liberty and government—
Psychological freedom.
III. J. S. Mill : Logic an d Empiricis m .... 50
Introductory remarks—Names and propositions, real and
verbal—The nature of mathematics—Syllogistic reasoning-
induction and the principle of the uniformity of Nature—The
law of causation—Experimental inquiry and deduction—
Method in the Moral Sciences—Matter as a permanent possi-
bility of sensations—The analysis of mind and the spectre of
solipsism—Mill on religion and natural theology.
IV. Empiric ists , Agn ostic s, Posit ivist s . . 93
Alexander Bain and the associationist psychology—Bain on
utilitarianism—Henry Sidgwick’s combination of utilitarianism
and inflationism—Charles Darwin and the philosophy of evolu-
tion—T. H. Huxley; evolution, ethics and agnosticism—
Scientific materialism and agnosticism; John Tyndall and
Leslie Stephen—G. J. Romanes and religion—Positivism; the
Comtist groups, G. H. Lewes, W. K. Chfiord, K. Pearson—
B. Kidd; concluding remarks.
V. The Philos oph y of Herbe rt Spence r . . .121
Life and writings—The nature of philosophy and its basic con-
cepts and principles—The general law of evolution: the
alternation of evolution and dissolution—Sociology and
politics—Relative and absolute ethics—The Unknowable in
religion and science—Final comments.
v
CONTENTS
VI
Par t II
THE IDEALIST MOVEMENT IN GREAT BRITAIN
Chapter Page
VI. The Begin nings of th e Moveme nt . . . 146
Introductory historical remarks—Literary pioneers: Coleridge
and Carlyle—Ferrier and the subject-object relation—John
Grote’s attack on phenomenalism and hedonism—The revival
of interest in Greek philosophy and the rise of interest in
Hegel; B. Jowett and J. H. Stirling.
VII. The Devel opment of Idea lism .... 165
T. H. Green's attitude to British empiricism and to German
thought—Green’s doctrine of the eternal subject, with some
critical comments—The ethical and political theory of Green
—E. Caird and the unity underlying the distinction between
subject and object—J. Caird and the philosophy of religion—
W. Wallace and D. G. Ritchie.
VIII. Absolu te Idea li sm: Bradl ey .... 187
Introductory remarks—The Presuppositions of Critical History
—Morality and its self-transcending in religion—The relevance
of logic to metaphysics—The basic presupposition of meta-
physics—Appearance: the thing and its qualities, relations and
their terms, space and time, the self—Reality: the nature of the
Absolute—Degrees of truth and reality—Error and evil—
The Absolute, God and religion—Some critical discussion of
Bradley's metaphysics.
IX. Absolut e Ideal ism: Bosa nqu et .... 219
Life and writings—Logic; judgment and reality—The meta-
physics of individuality—Bosanquet’s philosophy of the State
—Hobhouse's criticism of Bosanquet—R. B. Haldane;
Hegelianism and relativity—H. H. Joachim and the coherence
theory of truth.
X. The Turn tow ard s Perso nal Idea lism . . . 237
Pringle-Pattison and the value of the human person—The
pluralistic idealism of McTaggart—The pluralistic spiritualism
of J. Ward—General comments.
Part III
IDEALISM IN AMERICA
XI. Intr odu cto ry ....................................................................254
The beginnings of philosophy in America; S. Johnson and
J. Edwards—Die Enlightenment in America; B. Franklin and
T. Jefferson—The influence of the Scottish philosophy—R. V/.
Emerson and Transcendentalism—W. T. Hams and his
programme for speculative philosophy.
CONTENTS vii
Chapter P<W
XII. The Phil os ophy of Royc e..........................................268
Remarks on Royce’s writings previous to his Gifford Lectures
—The meaning of Being and the meaning of ideas—Three
inadequate theories of Being—The fourth conception of Being
—The finite self and the Absolute; moral freedom—The social
aspect of morality—Immortality—Infinite series and the idea
of a self-representative system—Some critical comments.
XIII. Pers ona l Ide al ism and Othe r Ten de ncie s . . 289
Howison's criticism of Royce in favour of his own ethical
pluralism—The evolutionary idealism of Le Conte—The
personal idealism of Bowne—The objective idealism of Creigh-
ton—Sylvester Morris and dynamic idealism—Notes on the
prolongation of idealism into the twentieth century—An
attempt at transcending the opposition between idealism and
realism.
Part IV
THE PRAGMATIST MOVEMENT
XIV. The Phil os ophy of C. S. Peir ce .... 304
The life of Peirce—The objectivity of truth—Rejection of the
method of universal doubt—Logic, ideas and the pragmatist
analysis of meaning—Pragmatism and realism—The prag-
matist analysis of meaning and positivism—Ethics, pure and
practical—Peirce's metaphysics and world-view—Some com-
ments on Peirce's thought.
XV. The Pragmat ism of James and Schil ler . . 330
The life and writings of William James—James’s conception of
radical empiricism and pure experience—Pragmatism as theory
of meaning and as theory of truth—The relations between
radical empiricism, pragmatism and humanism in the philo-
sophy of James—Pragmatism and belief in God—Pragmatism
in America and England—The humanism of C. F. S. Schiller.
XVI. The Expe rimen tal ism of John Dewey . . . 352
Life and writings—Naturalistic empiricism: thought, experi-
ence and knowledge—The function of philosophy—Instru-
mentalism: logic and truth—Moral theory—Some implications
in social and educational theory—Religion in a naturalistic
philosophy—Some critical comments on Dewey’s philosophy.
Part V
THE REVOLT AGAINST IDEALISM
XVII. Reali sm in Britain and America .... 380
An introductory remark—Some Oxford realists—Brief notes
on an ethical discussion at Oxford—American neo-realism—
Critical realism in America—The world-view of Samuel
Alexander—A reference to A. N. Whitehead.
viii CONTENTS
Chapter Page
XVIII. G. E. Moore and Anal ysis ..........................................402
Life and writings—Common sense realism—Some remarks on
Moore's ethical ideas—Moore on analysis—The sense-datum
theory as an illustration of Moore’s practice of analysis.
XIX. Ber tr and Russe ll (i) ..........................................425
Introductory remarks—Life and writings up to the publication
of Principia Mathematical Russell's idealist phase and his
reaction against it, the theory of types, the theory of descrip-
tions, the reduction of mathematics to logic—Ockham’s razor
and reductive analysis as applied to physical objects and to
minds—Logical atomism and the influence of Wittgenstein—
Neutral monism—The problem of solipsism.
XX. Ber tr and Russe ll (2).........................................................455
The postulates of non-demonstrative inference and the limits of
empiricism—Language; the complexity of language and the
idea of a hierarchy of languages, meaning and significance,
truth and falsity—Language as a guide to the structure of the
world.
XXL Bertra nd Russ ell (3).........................................................471
Introductory remarks—Russell's earlier moral philosophy and
the influence of Moore—Instinct, mind and spirit—The relation
of the judgment of value to desire—Social science and power—
Russell’s attitude towards religion—The nature of philosophy
as conceived by Russell—Some brief critical comments.
Epilo gue ..............................................................................495
Append ix A: John Henry Newman . . . 510
Introductory remarks—Newman's approach to the problem of
religious belief in his university sermons—The approach in The
Grammar of Assent—Conscience and God—The convergence of
probabilities and the illative sense—Final remarks.
Appendix B: A Short Bibl iograp hy . . .526
Inde x........................................................................................553
PREFACE
In the preface to Volume VII of this History of Philosophy I said
that I hoped to devote a further volume, the eighth, to some
aspects of French and British thought in the nineteenth century.
This hope has been only partially fulfilled. For the present volume
contains no treatment of French philosophy but is devoted
exclusively to some aspects of British and American thought. It
covers rather familiar ground. But in a general history of Western
philosophy this ground obviously ought to be covered.
As I have strayed over well into the twentieth century, some
explanation may be needed of the fact that the philosophy of
Bertrand Russell, who is happily still with us, has been accorded
relatively extensive treatment, whereas the thought of Ludwig
Wittgenstein, who died in 1951, has been relegated to the epilogue,
apart from a few allusions in the chapter on Russell. After all, it
may be pointed out, Russell was himself influenced to a certain
extent by Wittgenstein, both in regard to the interpretation of the
logical status of the propositions of logic and pure mathematics
and in regard to logical atomism.
The explanation is simple enough. Russell's thought fits
naturally into the context of the revolt against idealism; and
though he has obviously exercised a powerful influence on the rise
and development of the analytic movement in twentieth-century
British thought, in some important respects he has maintained a
traditional view of the function of philosophy. His lack of sym­
pathy with Wittgenstein's later ideas and with certain aspects of
recent 'Oxford philosophy’ is notorious. Further, though he has
emphasized the limitations of empiricism as a theory of know­
ledge, in some respects he can be regarded as prolonging the
empiricist tradition into the twentieth century, even if he has
enriched it with new techniques of logical analysis. Wittgenstein,
however, frankly proposed a revolutionary concept of the nature,
function and scope of philosophy. Certainly, there is a very
considerable difference between the ideas of language expounded
in the Tractatus and those expounded in Philosophical Investiga­
tions', but in both cases the concept of philosophy is far from being
a traditional one. And as limitations of space excluded the
possibility of according extensive treatment to the concentration
ix
PREFACE
X
on language which is associated with the name of Wittgenstein, I
decided to confine my discussion of the subject to some brief
remarks in an epilogue. This fact should not, however, be inter­
preted as implying a judgment of value in regard to the philosophy
either of Russell or of Wittgenstein. I mean, the fact that I have
devoted three chapters to Russell does not signify that in my
opinion his thought is simply a hangover from the nineteenth
century. Nor does the fact that I have relegated Wittgenstein to
the epilogue, apart from some allusions in the chapters on Russell,
mean that I fail to appreciate his originality and importance.
Rather is it a matter of not being able to give equally extensive
treatment to the ideas of both these philosophers.
A word of explanation may also be appropriate in regard to my
treatment of Cardinal Newman. It will be obvious to any attentive
reader that in distinguishing the currents of thought in the
nineteenth century I have used traditional labels, ‘empiricism’,
‘idealism’ and so on, none of which can properly be applied to
Newman. But to omit him altogether, because of the difficulty of
classifying him, would have been absurd, especially when I have
mentioned a considerable number of much less distinguished
thinkers. I decided, therefore, to make a few remarks about some
of his philosophical ideas in an appendix. I am well aware, of
course, that' this will not satisfy Newman enthusiasts; but a writer
cannot undertake to satisfy everybody.
Volumes VII and VIII having been devoted respectively to
German and British-American philosophy in the nineteenth
century, the natural procedure would be to devote a further
volume, the ninth, to aspects of French and other European
philosophy during the same period. But I am inclined to postpone
the writing of this volume and to turn my attention instead to the
subject to which I referred in the preface to Volume VII, that is,
to what may be called the philosophy of the history of philosophy
or general reflection on the development of philosophical thought
and on its implications. For I should like to undertake this task
while there is a reasonable possibility of fulfilling it.