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Coversheet for Thesis in Sussex Research Online A University of Sussex DPhil thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://eprints.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online for more information and further details ‘The Language of the Naked Facts’ Joseph Priestley on language and revealed religion Elizabeth Sarah Kingston DPhil Intellectual History University of Sussex 2010 2 Declaration I hereby declare that this thesis has not been, and will not be, submitted in whole or in part, to another University for the award of any other degree. Signature………………………………………………………. 3 University of Sussex Elizabeth Sarah Kingston ‘The Language of the Naked Facts’ Joseph Priestley on language and revealed religion Summary Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) is usually remembered for his experiments in natural philosophy and celebrated for his isolation of the gas we now call oxygen. However, Priestley had a wide range of interests and published extensively on education, history, politics, political philosophy, language, theology and religion. He dedicated his life to elucidating a coherent set of epistemological, metaphysical and theological principles which he believed explained the human mind, the natural world and the nature of God and revelation. Recent studies of Priestley have emphasised the difficulties that arise from isolating the various aspects of his thought and the fruitful outcome of uncovering the many connections between his diverse areas of study. With this in mind, the present dissertation aims to elucidate the relationship between two aspects of Priestley’s thought that have not previously been studied together. It examines his theory of language and argument alongside his work on theology and the evidences of revelation. Chapter One provides an overview of Priestley’s epistemology, focusing on his work on induction, judgment and assent. Chapter Two looks at Priestley’s analysis of the role of the passions in our assent to propositions and the progressive generation of the personality, while paying particular attention to the origins of figurative language. Chapter Three examines Priestley’s theory of language development including the relationship between figurative language and the extension of vocabulary and the close connection between language and culture. Chapter Four demonstrates that Priestley’s discussion of the evidences of revealed religion is structured around his theory of assent and judgment. It also explains how assent to revelation is essential for the generation and transcendence of the ‘self’. Chapter Five brings all the themes of the dissertation together in a discussion of Priestley’s rational theology and examines his analysis of figurative language in scripture. 4 Dedication For my Grandparents 5 Acknowledgments The Arts and Humanities Research Council provided the funding that enabled me to carry out this work. I would very much like to thank my supervisor Knud Haakonssen for his hard work, support and encouragement and for being so generous with his time. I would also like to thank the staff and postgraduates at the Sussex Centre for Intellectual History for their friendship and advice. I benefited a great deal from presenting parts of this work during seminars and conferences at the University of Sussex, the University of Birmingham and the University of East Anglia. I am also grateful to the Priestley Society for allowing me to present my work on a number of occasions and for their warm hospitality. I am extremely grateful to Judith Greenwood for proofreading this dissertation and for her ongoing confidence in me. Finally, I would also like to thank my parents and sister, Tim and the Harrison family, housemates old and new, Beth and Moira, Sophie, Emma, and Russell. 6 Contents Declaration……………………………………………………………………………….2 Summary…………………………………………………………………………………3 Dedication………………………………………………………………………………..4 Acknowledgments……………………………………………………………………….5 Contents………………………………………………………………………………….6 A Note on References and Abbreviations……………………………………………….7 Introduction: Links in a Great Connected Chain………………………………………...8 Chapter One: The Necessary Nature of Things………………………………………...12 Chapter Two: Entering Upon a New World……………………………………………46 Chapter Three: The Art of Language…………………………………………………..80 Chapter Four: The Final Cause of so strange an Appearance…………......…............118 Chapter Five: The Language of the Naked Facts…………………………………......155 Conclusion: A Comet in the System…………………………………………………..188 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………......192 7 A Note on References References appear in footnotes at the end of each paragraph. In the first reference to the text the details of the publication are given in full and subsequent uses are abbreviated. The abbreviation ‘Works’ followed by a volume number indicates Priestley’s texts found in J. T. Rutt (ed.), The Theological and Miscellaneous Works of Joseph Priestley, (Bristol, 1999). Subsequent references give the volume number only. Abbreviations LLG: Joseph Priestley, A Course of Lectures on the Theory of Language and Universal Grammar . Warrington: 1762. LOC: Joseph Priestley, A Course of Lectures on Oratory and Criticism . London: 1777. 8 Introduction Links in a Great Connected Chain Joseph Priestley saw truth and beauty in simplicity. His work is testament to a fundamental need to identify regularity in the perceived chaos of existence and is evidence of a mind driven to classify the raw materials of experience. ‘The great business of philosophy’, he tells us, ‘is to reduce into classes the various appearances which nature presents to our view’. Priestley dedicated his life to elucidating a coherent set of epistemological, metaphysical and theological principles which he believed explained the human mind, the natural world, and the nature of God and revelation. Committed to the Newtonian methods of his era, Priestley rejected all conclusions based on speculation and insisted that his ideas were grounded only in reason and experience. According to Priestley the harmonious and interrelated principles that he identified were the inevitable result of careful observation and the formulation of propositions based on the induction of general laws from particular facts. Nature presents to our view particular effects, in connexion with their separate causes, by which we are often puzzled, till philosophy steps in to our assistance, pointing out similarity in these effects, and the probability of such similar effects arising from the same cause. For Priestley this process of induction is the very essence of reason: it is the method by which ‘we are obliged to proceed in our investigation of truth’. Priestley was attracted to the notion of pre-ordained uniformity in nature and envisaged an ordered universe governed by a set of simple laws, or chains of cause and effect, maintained by God. Immersed in limitless particularity and diversity of effects, the human mind is designed by a benevolent creator to comprehend overarching laws and identify common causes by a process of abstraction. Reason is a gift from God, it is the faculty that distinguishes us from animals and the means by which all ‘proper happiness’ and knowledge is attained. According to Priestley, a mind guided solely by reason will mechanically formulate universal propositions that reflect the objective order of external reality. Furthermore, Priestley believed his careful application of reason and his rigorous exclusion of passion, prejudice and irrationality from the process of logical 9 investigation had enabled him to access profound and universal truths. He devoted around two hundred publications to conveying these ideas in great depth and detail. 1 This commitment to reason and the inductive method tied together Priestley’s impressively wide range of intellectual pursuits. He published extensively on theology and religion, natural philosophy, metaphysics, history, education, oratory, politics, and political philosophy, and he is appreciated today for what John McEvoy calls the ‘synoptic unity’ of his thought. The systematic and coherent nature of Priestley’s mind allowed him to articulate a harmonious set of intellectual principles and explore the relationships between them with great clarity. A brief overview of his materialist, associationist and necessitarian outlook demonstrates the breadth of his philosophy. i) Materialism. Priestley posited that matter, rather than being impenetrable and inert, is subject to internal forces such as attraction and compulsion. This enabled him to argue that the matter of the brain is sensitive to vibrations that are the basis of all thought and to deny the existence of an immaterial soul. ii) Association of ideas. Priestley held that the vibrations that constitute thought are caused by external objects and he concluded that the mind has no innate ideas. Our ideas and mental states are acquired solely through sensory experience, and simple ideas are combined into complex ones by virtue of repeated conjunction or association. iii) Philosophical necessity. A wholly material mind is subject to the same causal laws as the natural world,
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