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E. A. Burtt: Historian and Philosopher NOTES TO E. A. BURTT: HISTORIAN AND PHILOSOPHER Notes to the Introduction 1 The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science: A Historical and Critical Essay, (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1924) was published in England by the International Library of Psychology, Philosophy, and Scientific Method, edited by c.K. Ogden. Burtt had tried, unsuccessfully, to have the volume published in the u.s. Since the book was a Ph.D. thesis and Columbia required 100 copies before granting Burtt his degree, he finally found a New York publisher to make the printing in the U. S. Harcourt, Brace & Company gave part of their issue a separate cover which reads: "The Metaphysics of Sir Isaac Newton: An Essay on the Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science, by Edwin Arthur Burtt, AB, STM, Assistant Professor of Philosophy in the University of Chicago. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the Faculty of Philosophy, Columbia University." The rest of the edition bore the title: The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science (1925). The book was reissued in 1932 by Routledge & Kegan Paul in the second edition. Only the last chapter was changed, and it was completely rewritten with greater emphasis on the need for a new philosophy of mind. Since 1932 the book has been reprinted many times without further revision, and remains in print today. The Humanities Press picked it up in 1952, Anchor Books edition, 1954. First paper back edition, 1980. The sixth printing appeared in 1992. Some reprint editions have an error in the title, which reads, "The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science." The original publisher is bringing out a new reprint edition in the near future. All citations in this book are from the 1992 edition, unless otherwise noted. 2 Burtt was reacting against the positivism of Ernst Mach, which had inspired the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle. Although "logical positivism' is the label which A.E. Blumberg and Herbert Feigl gave to the set of ideas associated with the Vienna Circle in 1931, the same name is used more broadly to include the analytical philosophies developed at Cambridge and Oxford. Burtt was immersed in teaching British empirical philosophy at the time he was writing The Metaphysical Foundations. Naturally he was discussing and debating the new realism of Whitehead, Russell and Moore. He must have been aware of the New Realism emerging in the United States, led in part by his thesis advisor, F.J.E. Woodbridge at Columbia. But primarily, it is the new British philosophy to which Burtt refers in his introduction. Therefore, it is 248 NOTES "logical empiricism" he is directly criticizing. "Logical empiricism" is the term of choice for Realists to describe their philosophy and its methods. Those less sympathetic call it "logical positivism". Here, in discussing the analytical philosophy from Burtt's point of view, the term "logical positivism" will be used. Otherwise, "logical empiricism" or "British empiricism" should be construed to mean the philosophy inspired by Bertrand Russell and A.N. Whitehead, married with Mach's ideas to become many species of analytical philosophy which dominated the American universities throughout most of the twentieth century. 3Daston, Lorraine. History of Science in an Elegiac Mode, E.A. Burtt's Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science Revisited, ISIS 82 (1991): 522-523 and 530-531. 4 Metaphysical Foundations, 238. 5 Metaphysical Foundations, 300. 6 Thomas Kuhn, personal correspondence, 4 January 1994. 7 Henry GuerIac, Essays and Papers in the History of Modern Science, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977), 63. 8 Alexandre Koyre, De la mystique a las science Cours, conferences et documents 1922- 1962, edited by Pietro Redondi, (Paris: Editions De L'Ecole Des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1986) Preface, XX-XXII. 9 Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, second edition, Preface, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962, 1970), note 1, vi and T.S. Kuhn, Alexandre Koyre & the History of Science, On an Intellectual Revolution, Encounter, Oan., 1970): 67- 69. 10 Metaphysical Foundations, 306-307. 11 Paul Hoyningen-Huene, Reconstructing Scientific Revolutions, Thomas S. Kuhn's Philosophy of Science. Translated by Alexander T. Levine with a Foreword by Thomas S. Kuhn. (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 123. 12 Hoyningen-Huene, 130. 13 See H. Floris Cohen, The Scientific Revolution, 122-150, and especially, 130-131. 14 Metaphysical Foundations, 324-325. Notes to Chapter 1 1 Morris R. Cohen, American Thought, (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1954), 74. 2 Marcus G. Singer, American Philosophy, (Cambridge, London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 299. 3 Ibid., 302. 4 Some of these were Sidney Hook, Ernest Nagel, Herbert Schneider, Paul Weiss and Morton White. 5 Morton White, The Revolt Against Formalism in American Social Thought of the Twentieth Century, Journal of the History of Ideas, Volume VIII, Number 2, (April, NOTES 249 1947): 131-152. White characterized the teachers of these men as "under the spell of history and culture". Notes to Chapter 2 I John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy, (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1920), 18. 2 J.H. Robinson, The Mind in the Making, 3. 3 John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy, 2. 4Burtt, The Philosophy of Man as All-embracing Philosophy, The Philosophical Forum, Volume II, number 2, (Winter, 1970-71), 162. 5Ibid., 161. 6Ibid., 170. 7Ibid., 169. 8 J.H. Robinson, The Mind in the Making, (New York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1921), 108. 9 Harvey Wish, Introduction to J.H. Robinson, The New History, (New York: Macmillan Co., originally published 1912, 1965 edition), ix. 10 Ibid., xii. II Ibid., xv. 12 John H. Randall, The Department of Philosophy in A History of the Faculty of Philosophy Columbia University, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957), 116. 13 Ibid., 130 14 Ibid., 127. IS E.A. Burtt, My Path to Philosophy, Philosophy East and West, Volume 22, Number 4 (October 1972): 430. 16 Samuel Meyer, editor, Types of Thinking including A Survey of Greek Philosophy by John Dewey, (New York: Philosophical Library, 1984). Although Meyer claims this previously unpublished manuscript, documenting Dewey's history of philosophy and comparison of the various schools, is new, the book seems to be a popularized version o(Reconstruction in Philosophy (1920), Dewey's most popular book. Richard J. Bernstein, writing for The Encyclopedia of Philosophy claims the work is based on the Japan/ China lectures. 17James Gutmann, John Herman Randall, Jr.: A Memoir of His Career at Columbia, 1915-1967 in Naturalism and Historical Understanding, Essays on the Philosophy of John Herman Randall, Jr., John P. Anton, editor, (New York: State University of New York Press),284. 18 Howard Thurman, With Head and Heart, (New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979),44. I am indebted to Helen and Karl Schantz and Caroline and Frank Pineo of Ithaca, 250 NOTES New York for leading me to this source. 19 John H. Randall, How Philosophy Uses Its Past, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963),18. 20 Robinson resigned in 1919 to found the New School with Dewey and Beard, but Beard had resigned earlier, in1917, to protest the firings of Professors J. M. Cattell and H.W. L Dana for their alleged support of pacifism. Joseph Freeman,_An American Testament, (New York: Octagon Books, 1973): 104-109. 21 J.H. Randall, Jr., Autobiographical Sketch preceding the essay, Historical Naturalism in American Philosophy Today and Tomorrow, Horace Kallan and Sidney Hook, editors, (New York: Lee Furman, Inc., 1935), 411. 22 John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy, (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1920), 17. 23 J.H. Randall, Jr., The Department of Philosophy in A History of the Faculty of Philosophy Columbia University,129. 24 John H. Randall, The Department of Philosophy, 127. 25 Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy, 74-75. 26 Ibid., 75. 27 Ibid., 131. 28 Ibid., 1. 29 Ibid., 8. 30 Ibid., 2. 31 Ibid., 9. 32 Ibid., 25. 33 Ibid., 25. 34 Ibid., Chapter 4. 35 Ibid., 130-131. 36 Ibid., 133. 37 John Dewey, How We Think, (Boston, New York and Chicago: D.C. Heath, 1910), 6. 38 Ibid., 9. 39 Ibid., 12-13. 40 Ibid., 13. 41 Paul Kurtz, American Philosophy in the Twentieth Century, A Source book from Pragmatism to Philosophical Analysis, (New York and London: Macmillan Co., 1966 and 1968), 20. 42 Dewey, How We Think, 22. 43 Metaphysical Foundations, 229. 44 E.A. Burtt, The Contemporary Significance of Newton I s Metaphysics in Isaac Newton 1642-1727, A ljIemorial Volume, edited for the Mathematical Association by W.J. Greenstreet, (London: G. Bell and Sons, Limited, 1927), 140. NOTES 251 45 Metaphysical Foundations, 324-325. Chapter 3 1 Masterpieces of World Philosophy in Summary Form, edited by Frank N. Magill and Ian P. McGreal, (New York: Harper & Brothers, 19961),1022. 2 Ibid., 1022. 3 Ibid., 1023. 4Sidney Hook, Out of Step, (New York: Harper and Row), 85-86. 5 C.F. Delaney, Mind and Nature, (Notre Dame: U. of Notre Dame Press, 1969), 19. 6 Randall, The Department of Philosophy, 119-120. 7 Ibid., 123. 8 Ibid., 119. 9 F.J.E. Woodbridge, The Purpose of His tory, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1916), 27-28. 10 Joseph Freeman, An American Testament, (New York: Octagon Books, 1973), chapter 1, "Saviors in Cap and Gown" and especially page 106 for a description of history at Columbia during the second decade of the century. II Frederick F.J.E .. Woodbridge, Nature and Mind: Selected Essays, (New York: Russell and Russell, 1965), p. 283. 12 Frederick J.W. Woodbridge, An Essay on Nature, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1940), p.
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