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IDEAL Dic 22/4/05 3:18 pm Page 305 SURNAME (1907). Howison Lecture in 1927, and the Mills Liverpool Addresses on the Ethics of Social Lecture in 1928, both at Berkeley. In 1939 he Work (Liverpool, 1911). gave the Paul Carus Lectures for the American The Political Philosophy of Burke (1913). Philosophical Association. In these lectures he began putting together the views he had been WJM developing for many years. His written account of the lectures was never completed; in 1956 it was published posthumously with a number of previously published essays as Towards a Perspective Realism. McGilvary was President of the Western Philosophical Association in McGILVARY, Evander Bradley (1864–1953) 1911–12, and the American Philosophical Association (now Eastern Division) in Evander Bradley McGilvary was born on 19 1913–14. July 1864 in Bangkok, Siam (now Thailand). Unlike Descartes’s metaphysics, which begins His father Daniel McGilvary (Princeton class of with an attempt at doubting all common sense, 1856) and mother Sophia (Bradley) McGilvary McGilvary’s metaphysics is an effort to preserve were Presbyterian missionaries to Siam. In 1867 as much of common sense as possible. the family went to the northern Siam province McGilvary described his own philosophy as of Chiang Mai in 1867 as founders of the Laos “perspective realism.” Insofar as perspective Mission, where McGilvary grew up. He realism is a metaphysics, it is to be conceived as returned to the United States at the age of nine an integration of physics and psychology. to live in North Carolina and attend Davidson Visual perspectives provide the most intuitive College, where he received his BA and gradu- examples of what perspectives are, although ated valedictorian of his class in 1884. After McGilvary would eventually extend the notion studying theology at Princeton Theological of a perspective to every aspect of reality, going Seminary, where he received an MA in 1888, he so far as to consider even beauty a property returned to Siam for three years of service objects have from a certain biological perspec- during 1891–4 as a translator to his father’s tive. In the visual case, an array of “objects Presbyterian Seminary in Chiang Mai. Upon sensibly perceived by an observer from any one returning to the US he obtained his PhD in phi- of the positions his eyes may occupy is his per- losophy from the University of California at spective from that position, and any object in Berkeley in 1897, writing a dissertation on that field is ‘in that perspective’” (1956, “The Principle and the Method of the Hegelian p. 156). Dialectic: A Defense of the Dialectic Against Its In 1907, before adopting perspectivism as Critics.” McGilvary also taught philosophy at his central philosophical tenet, McGilvary pub- Berkeley, first as an instructor during 1895–7 lished his first major work, “Pure Experience and as an assistant professor during 1897–9. In and Reality,” in which he alleged a “crisis” in 1899 he became Sage Professor of Ethics at John DEWEY’s system. In particular, he alleged Cornell University. In 1905 he became profes- that at the very least Dewey was “anti-realist” sor of philosophy and head of the department and, perhaps, even an idealist. Dewey replied at the University of Wisconsin, holding these energetically, denying McGilvary’s numerous positions until his retirement in 1934. claims without, however, explicitly rejecting McGilvary died on 11 September 1953 in idealism in the precise terms that McGilvary Madison, Wisconsin. demanded. McGilvary was given “a page and McGilvary was frequently invited to lecture a day” to reply. Perhaps realizing that his at several universities. McGilvary delivered the response had been weak, one year later he pub- 305 IDEAL Dic 22/4/05 3:18 pm Page 306 SURNAME lished “The Chicago ‘Idea’ and Idealism,” properties, McGilvary tells us only that the which straightforwardly invited Dewey to deny latter “grow” from the former “like branches that he was an idealist. Dewey in a compli- grow from a tree” (1956, p. 35). mentary and sometimes even flattering rejoin- Physical objects and their properties are real, der to McGilvary stated explicitly: “I deny I am not ideal, according to McGilvary. But the an idealist.” Henceforth, McGilvary spoke in properties a thing has are not had absolutely laudatory terms of both Dewey and his phi- but rather are had from a perspective. This is losophy. true of both primary qualities (for example, Pragmatism exerted considerable influence shapes) and secondary qualities (for instance, on McGilvary’s thinking, particularly in his colors). Colors, in fact, become properties of rejection of what he regarded as the dogmatic objects “from the perspective of the eye.” Such approach of past philosophies. His rejection relativity to perspective is a distinguishing char- of dogmatism resulted in his acceptance of the acteristic of McGilvary’s “perspective realism,” method of postulates. Postulates he viewed not a term he coined to distinguish his own position as dogmas but, rather, as useful assumptions in from that of earlier perspectivists such as guiding his own inquiry. One postulate central Russell, A. N. WHITEHEAD, Samuel Alexander, to his philosophy was that every relation is a and George H. MEAD. For the most part, earlier relation between terms that are not analyzable perspectivists had concentrated on space and into relations, suggesting familiarity with the spatiality, but McGilvary attempted to extend central arguments of F. H. Bradley’s perspectivism to memory and even the physical Appearance and Reality. It is likely that and physiological conditions that determine McGilvary’s postulational approach was to a the attributes an object possesses. His realism, degree inspired by the American postulate theo- however, was less radical and merely acknowl- rists. These were philosophically aware math- edged that the world given to experience is the ematicians, mostly at Harvard University, real world as “common sense” would have it. whose interests were closely tied to another McGilvary cited William JAMES as the perspectivist philosopher, Bertrand Russell. greatest single influence on his own work. Among them were such luminaries as Oswald There were, however, two important respects VEBLEN, an influential topologist and a relation in which they differed. James had held that of Thorstein VEBLEN, and E. V. HUNTINGTON, consciousness was not a thing but a relation. who had authored a widely read introduction This position appears to have had an enormous to the mathematical theory of continuity. effect on both McGilvary’s metaphysics and McGilvary’s postulational approach implic- his theory of knowledge. But the influence did itly defined the strength and limitations of his not endure unqualified. Although for a number ontology, which relied in large measure on two of years McGilvary held that vision was a fundamental distinctions, that between two relation, much like the relation being a grand- kinds of properties: dynamic and nondynamic, father, rather than an action, he later came to and two kinds of individuals: things and sub- maintain that it involved both an activity as stances. Dynamic properties constitute the well as a relation. This activity he identified as subject matter of physics and provide the basis a brain activity, an activity that gives rise to the for nondynamic properties, such as secondary nondynamic relation of consciousness: “We qualities. While substances are the sorts of indi- are now in a position to define the perspec- viduals that consist in dynamic properties, tivist’s mind as an organism whose dynamic things consist in substances combined with the brain action is conditioning, or giving rise to, a nondynamic properties to which the sub- nondynamic conscious relation of which it stance’s dynamic properties give rise. As for thereby becomes a term.” (1956, p. 67) the relation between dynamic and nondynamic Despite this introduction of dynamics to his 306 IDEAL Dic 22/4/05 3:18 pm Page 307 SURNAME relational theory of consciousness, McGilvary by Henri Bergson as well as C. Lloyd Morgan’s retained relations as basic ingredients of his “emergent evolution.” Such descriptions, ontology. Historically, they have always been McGilvary avers, place insufficient emphasis on of paramount interest to perspectivist philoso- novelty as an essential consequence of emer- phy. McGilvary’s radical perspectivism was no gence. Because of this, he prefers the expression exception. “Things” become little else than the “innovative evolution.” It is not to be ignored “entireness” of their relational characters (for that perspective, also, enters into the production example, “being the grandson of T. H. of epiphysical qualities and, therefore, innova- Huxley”), while relations themselves depend on tive evolution. terms for their being, since their being is merely McGilvary regarded consciousness, consid- “being between.” Nothing on this view either ered as an epiphysical relation dependent on exists or is known to exist independently of its nerve activity, as the defining feature of his relation to other things. Notwithstanding own “perspective realism.” Consciousness is a James’s enormous influence on McGilvary, it nondynamic relation, which “supervenes” would be a mistake to characterize his philos- upon a dynamic process under dynamic neu- ophy in the broadest of terms as “philosophi- rological conditions. While it is tempting to cal psychology.” Even though consciousness view McGilvary’s position as epiphenomenal-

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