A HUNDRED YEARS OF PHILOSOPHY

John Passmore

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PENGUINBOOKS -./ ('t ("(-^ ,l THE NEW REALISTS CHAPTER 11 pcriencedepends for its existenceupon the fact that it is experi- onccd was to be the most characteristic feature of the New The New Realists llcnlism. The secondaryqualities, Stout had also said, exist only as objccts of experience.If we look at a buttercup in a variety of years present IN the early of the century, it could no longer bc lightswe seedifferent shades ofcolour, without havingany reason presufned that Realism was intellectually disreputable,a mero to believethat the buttercup itself has altered; if a number of vulgar prejudice. What a mind knows, Brentano and Meinong observersplunge their hands into a bowl of water, they will report had argued,exists independently of the act by which it is known; vcry different degrees of warmth, even although nothing has Mach, and James after him - if they were still, from a Realist Iruppenedwhich could affect the water's temperature. Such facts point tainted of view, with subjectivism- had at least denied that dcmonstrate,Stout thought, that secondaryqualities exist only as what is immediately perceived is a state of mind; and then 'scnsa'- objectsof our perception;they are not actualproperties Moore, seconded by Russell, had rejected that thesis which of physicalobjects. Idealistslike phenomenalists Bradleyand like Mill had united in Nunn'sreply is uncompromising.The contrastbetween 'sensa' regarding as indisputable: that the existenceof objects of percep- and 'actual properties'is, he argues,an untenableone. All the tion consists the perceived. in fact that they are The 'New Real. nhadesof colour which the buttercuppresents to an observerare ism' brought togetherthese converging tendencies; it owedmuch uctual properties of the buttercup; and all the hotnessesof the to Meinong, more to Mach and James,and it acknowledgedtho w&terare propertiesof the water.The plain man and the scientist help Moore of and Russellin the battle againstIdealism. rscribea standardtemperature and a standardcolour to a thing The first, in England, to formulate the characteristic doctrinct nnd limit it to a certain region of space,because its complexity of the New Realismwas T. P. Nunn.l Best known as an educa. wouldotherwise defeat them. The fact remains,Nunn argues,that tionalist, Nunn wrote little philosophy, on but that little had an o thinghas not onehotness, for example,but many,and that these influence out of proportion all to its modest dimensions. In hotnessesare not in a limited regionof spacebut in variousplaces particular, his contribution to a symposiumon 'Are Secondary aroundabout the standardobject. A thing is hotter an inch away Independent Qualities of Perception?'2 was widely studied both than a foot away and hotter on a cold hand than on a warrn one, in England where,as we have alreadynoted, it struck Bertrand just as it is a paleryellow in one lieht than it is in another light. Russell'sroving fancy, and in the United States.Nunn there sus- To imagineotherwise is to confusebetween the arbitrary'thing' tained two theses:(l) that primary both the and the secondary of everyday life rand the 'thing' as experience shows it to qualitiesof really in perceived bodiesare them, whetherthey are be. not; (2) qualities perceived. or that exist as they are In Nunn's theory of perception,then, the ordinary conception Much of his argumentis polemical in form, with Stout'searlier of a material thing is revolutionized; that is the price he has to artidesr as its chief target. Stout had thought he could begin by payfor his Realism.A 'thing', now, is a colleclionof appearances' presuming that there are at least someelements in our experience evenifevery appeaxanceis independentofthe mind beforewhich which existonly in perceived pain. being - he instanced But Nunn it appears.Nunn's realism, at this point, is very like Mach's pain, precisely objects that in the manner of a material object, phenomenalism.The sameis true of American New Realism. presentsdifficulties us, path, to raisesobstacles in our is, in short, Scottish 'common-sensephilosophy', as we have already ob- somethingwe must reckon with. 'Pain,' he thereforeconcludes, served, dominated the American Universities during the greater something my 'is outside mind, with which my mind may como part of the nineteenthcentury; nor was it entirely swept out of into various relations.' A refusal to admit that anything wo €x- existenceeither by James'spragmatism or by Royce's idealism. 258 259 A HUNDREDYEARS OF PHILOSOPHY THE NBW REALISTS Peirce, to take the most notable case, continued to admire that contributions by E. B. Holt, W. T. Marvin, W. P. Montague, .critical 'subtle and well-balanced intellect, Thomas Reid'; his R. B. Perry, W. B. Pitkin and E. G. Spaulding. commonsensism'aowed much to Reid and his school. When The New Realismis the Realist equivalent of ldealism's Essays Peirce criticized Reid, furthermore, it was from a Realist point ln Philosophical Criticism. A number of philosophers, by no of view; Reid, he complained,had not wholly shakenhimself free nrcansunanimous on everypoint, felt that they had in commona .W€ from the Cartesian doctrine of representative perception. nrethodof approachto philosophy,with the help of which they have direct experienceof things in themselves,,peirce wrote in couldsatisfy their diverseaims. A manifesto,6it beginswith a long 1896.'Nothing can be more completelyfalse than that we can cxplanatory preface and ends with a series of brief policy- experienceonly our own ideas. That is indeed without exaggera- speeches.The world of philosophy could no longer pretend tion the very epitome of all falsity.' ignorance of the fact that a new and revolutionary spirit of The American tendency towards Realism, however, had been Itcalism was abroad. vigorously opposed by Royce rn The World and the Individaal ln many respects,however, The New Realism had little to add (1900). Realism was there defined as, above all, a defenceof in- exceptliveliness of statementto Moore's Refutationof ldealism. dependence,and Roycecriticized it as such.'The world of fact,, In other ways,again - in maintaining,for example,that philos- Roycedescribes the Realistas maintaining, 'is independentof our ophy is'peculiarly dependentupon logic' and in defendingthe knowledgeof that world . . . the vanishingof our mindsfrom that validity ofanalysis againstthe Idealist doctrine that'the truth is world would make no difference in the being of the independent the whole'- the New Realismis mainly important as a medium facts we know.' Royce's counter-argument, lengthy, robust and tlrrough which Russell'sconception of phllosophy was natural- ingenious, is designedto show that if independenceis ultimate - ized in America. Yet one must not overestimatethe New Real- not mere 'appearance'- then all relations,including the relation isnr'sindebtedness to English philosophy. Russell,after all, had of knowledge, are impossible in principle. In trying to preserve lcarnt many of his most characteristicdoctrines from William the independenceof the objects of knowledge the Realist ends, James,whom he describesas 'the most important of all critics of according to Royce, by destroying the very possibitity of know- Monism'. The point most vital in the logic of The New Realism ledge. - that relations are external - James had particularly urged. Royce's attack provoked an immediaie reply from two of his Marvin summed up that do4rine with rare succinctness.'In the former.pupils,R. B. Perryand W. P. Montague.sRelatedness and proposition"the term a is in the relation .Rto the term b", aR independence,they argued, perfectly are compatible.The task of in no degreeconstitutes b, nor does-Rb constitute a, nor doesR explainingin what 'independence'consistsis not, however,an constituteeither a or b.' From this it follows, presumingthat easy one; in England, Schiller had attacked Nunn on this very knowledgeis a relation, that the known is not constitutedby its point. To give a satisfactory account ofindependence was one of relationto the knowel, or the knower by its relationto the known, the two main problemswhich confrontedthe New Realists;the or either knower or known by the fact that it is a constituentin other was to explain, without abandoningRealism, how reality the knowledgerelation. is to be distinguishedfrom illusion - that rock on which so many On so much, the New Realistsagreed. There wasnot the same hogefullyJaunched Realismshave foundered. agreementabout the nature of the knower or the nature of the American philosophical journals, in the first decade of the known. When Russellrefered favourably to the 'new Realism' preseJrtcentuq/, cdntain a multitude of attempts to sketch a hc meantthe'neutral monism' which Perry and Holt had worked Realist philosophy which would deal satisfactorily with these out under the influenceof Mach, Jamesand Nunn.? Other New problems.But New Realismdid not comeof ageuntil the publica- Realists, Montague especially, were highly critical of neutral tion in l9l2 of The New Realism, a cooperative volume with monism. 260 261 A HUNDRED YEARS OF PIIILOSOPHY THE NEW REALISTS The Holt-Perry variety of realism is an out-radicalizing qf No doubt, Perry admits, other people sometimesfind it difficult James'sradical empiricism. Jameshad denied that there is suchaiq to decidewhat I am thinking about - that is why it is plausible entity as 'consciousness';its adherents,he wrote, ,are clingiilg' to suggsslthat the contentsof my mind are private to me - but to a mere echo, the faint rumour left behind by the disappearing this difficulty, he says,never amountsto an impossibility.Even . " soul " upon the air of philosophy '. There are only experiences' ; in the hardest of all cases,the casewhere I am remembering knowing is a relation between portions of pure experience. something,a careful observer,according to Perry, could appte' F. J. E. Woodbridge,8however, had objectedthat ,experience' lrcnd what I have before my mind. 'My rememberingLondon,' can only be definedas that of which a consciousbeing is aware; lrc says,'consists of such elementsas my central attentive pro- to talk of'experience', therefore, is already to presume the ccss, certain persisting modifications of my cerebrum, my reality ofconsciousness.Perry and Holt recognizedthe force of original dealings,practical and neural, with London - and Lon- Woodbridge'scriticism, which they tried to meet by defining don itself.' All of theseiue open to public observation,in prin- experiencewithout making any reference,explicit or implicit, to cipleat least. consciousness. The central teachingsof neutral monism ought by now to be For this purpose, they adapted to their ends another facet of clcar.'Consciousness'is abandoned; and so alsoare the'act of James'smany-sided philosophy. Jameshad emphasized- this nwareness'and the 'sense-datum',in the form they take in had been the theme of one of his earliest essays,'spencer,s Moore'stheory of perception.Nothing existsexcept objective Definition of Mind' (1878)- that a human being is an organism 'clcnrents'.Knowing is a relation betweensuch elements,a which has to maintain itself in an environmentwhich sometimes rclation peculiaronly in that at leastone of its terms must be an favours, and sometimesthreatens, its survival. Perry took over olganic process. from James this emphasis on the human organism, and united T'heusual objection springs to our lips. 'But what oferror and with it a theory of perception which Bergson had sketchedin his hlllucination? Are pink rats and bent sticksobjective elements ?' Matter and Memory: a mind's 'content', Bergsonhad argued, llolt is perfectlywilling to acceptthis consequence.'Every con- consists of that part of its environment to which its attention is tcnt,' he writes, 'subsistsin the all-inclusiveuniverse of being.' momentarily directed. Mind, Perry concluded, is ,an interested llut surely,we protest,some contents are real, othersunreal. 'As responseby an organism'. Our 'consciousnessof a table', for to what reality is,' Holt aloofly replies,in a passagewhich gave example, consists simply in the fact that our neryous system is rise to more than a little shocked comment' 'I take no g€at interestedin the table, No entity, 'consciousness',is here in- interest.' volved, not evenin the form of a 'mental act'. This is a natural enoughanswer, for on Holt's view the differ- Thus the familiar distinctionbetween the 'private' contentsof cncebetween the real and the unreal is an arbitrary convention. a particularconsciousness and the'public'world ofscienceis, on Wc set up a systemof connectedperceptions which, as Hume the Holt-Perry view, quite unwarranted.James, in his'How Two cxpressedthe matter,we 'dignify with the nameof reality'; we Minds can Know One Thing' (,/P, 1905),had suggestedthat an clll a perception'real',according to Holt, if it hasa placein such experienceis 'mine' only as it is felt as mine, and 'yours, as it is u system,and 'unreal ' if we wish to denyit the right of entranceto felt asyours - which doesnot preventit from being in fact both this exclusivesociety. As Russellmischievously put the same mine and yours. Following up this hint, Perry condemnsas 'the point,some perceptions form part of the'official biography'ofa nfailacy of exclusiveparticularity' the argument that because tlring - its staid, respectablebehaviour under normal circum- somethingis in your mind it cannot be in my mind; if it werenot slunces- whereasothers are wild, abnormal,best forgotten, un- for the fact that the contentsof minds intersect,he maintains, lcssthe epistemologistinsists upon acting as a muck-raker' The any sort of inter-human communication would be impossible. pftltosopher,Holt is saying, cannot be expectedto bother his 26;2 263 A HUNDREDYEARS OF PH1LOSOPHY THB NEW REALISTS enlightened head with so merely respectablea distinction. tuke the study of 'metaphysics' - understood as an attempt to On the ordinary account of the matter, there is a sharp dis- rliscover'the highest generalizationswarranted by our present tinction between,say, those properties of a tree which .really knowledge'.If, as philosopherssince Descartes had been accus' belong to it'and those, such as its perspectiveforeshortenings, torned to maintain, all knowledgeis basedupon knowledgeof which are 'unreal' or 'subjective'. But Holt follows Nunn in thecontents of our own mind, then it seemedplausible to conclude arguingthat the innumerablegeometrical projections of the tree- that an inquiry into the human mind ought to precede any to any of which the neryous system may react - have each of inquiry into reality itself; and the final effect of this circuitous them an equalright to be regardedas belongingto it, evenif it is npproachto metaphysicshad beenthe actualabsorption ofmeta- convenientfor practical purposesto describea certain shapeas physics,at least in empirical philosophies,into epistemology. its 'real shape'.The projectionsnit is clear,are all actualrelations tl'. on the other hand, knowing is merelyone of the many external of the tree, and there is no preciseway, Holt argues,of distin- lclationswhich link our experience,there is no reasonto believe guishingbetween 'the tree'and 'its relations,.As in Nunn'scase, tlrat a detailed epistemologyis an essential propaedeutic to then, the Holt-Perry defenceof the commonsenseview that the rnctaphysics.The metaphysicianis thus emancipated,Marvin objects of perceptionexist independentlyof the perceivercul- lhought,from his serviledependence upon the epistemologist. minatesin what is anything but a commonsenseview about the tt wasleft to a British philosopher,Samuel Alexander, to work nature of the objectsthemselves. out a recognizablyRealist metaphysics.His Space, Time and American New Realismwas, indeed, severely criticized on just lr(ily was published in 1920,at the beginning of a decadere- this point. There was somethingsuspect in the very ingenuity rrrurkablyproductive of metaphysicalsystems; the fust volume which Perry and Holt brought to bear upon their epistemology. trl' McTaggart'sThe Nature of Existenceappeared in 1921and The original group disintegrated;Holt becamea distinguished Wlritehead'sPro cess and Reality in 1929.The Nature of Existence, psychologist,Perry a moral theoristand a scholar,pitkin madehis Irowever,belongs in its essentialsto the British 'neo-Hegelian' reputation by advisinga multitude of readershow to be happy rrrovement;Space, Time and Deity,like Processand Reality,hus though forty; Montague continued to philosophize,but in a llrc New Realismbehind it, even although it is by no meansun- manner certainly not New Realist; neither Marvin nor Spaul- nllbctedby Bradley 4nd Bosanquet.And there is another vital ding made substantial contributions to philosophy.cyet the tfilf'erencebetween Space,Time and Deity and The Nature of movementhad madeits impact. As perry suggestsinhis Realism Ii.\'istenceiMcTaggart is trying to construct a strictly deductive in Retrospect(CAP,2) it was an important wing of the contem- rrrctaphysics,Alexander to 'give a plain description' of the world porary battle againstCartesianism; the New Realism attacked irr which we live and move and do our thinking. In his 'Some dualism in the interestsof a theory more sympatheticto the lrxplanations' (Mind, l92l), Alexander goes so far as to assert empirical spirit of the age than Absolute Idealismcould ever be. tlrtrt he dislikes arguments,a strange pronouncementfrom a And whateverthe difficultiesin which the New Realistsfound plrilosopher.'Philosophy,' he says,'proceeds by description:it themselves,the force of their polemicsagainst Cartesianism and orrly usesargument in order to help you to seethe facts,just as Absolutismwas unaffected.Few philosophers,nowadays, would n trotanistuses a microscope.'In an earlier article on 'Sensations whollyrej*t the nameof 'Realist'. lrrtl lrnages'(PlS, l9l0) his affiliationswith Husserlare even Marvin's eontribution to The New Realismhad borne the title rrrorc obvious; his method, he says,is 'an attempt to exclude 'The Emancipationof Philosophyfrom Epistemology'.An odd- plrilosophical presuppositions,and to state what is actually soundingtitle; for Realismhad ordinarily been, above all else, plcscnt in a given experience'.Nothing could be more remote an epistemology.But in Marvin's eyes,a Realistepistemology is lron The Natare of Existence, which is argument tbrough and important mainly becauseit leavesthe philosopher free to under- tlrlough. 'l 2& 26s A HUNDREDYEARS OF PHILOSOPHY THB NEW REALTSTS Alexander's method makesSpace, Time and Deity a peculiarly conceptions derived from biology play an important part in difficult book to read and to discuss;in many respects,it is morc Spucc,Time and Deity. like a work of literature than a philosoptry.We expectfrom a lrirst, however,Alexander was to make his name as an episte- philosopher a running thread of argument, interspersedwith rrrologist,in a long seriesof articlesculminating in 'The Basisof polemics. But there is very little of this in A.lexander;he simply Itculism' (PBA, l9l4). The immediatestimulus which provoked puts a hypothesisbefore us and then tells us to look and seehow Alcxander's paper was the appearanceof Bosanquet's The reasonable it all is, how admirablyit squareswith our experience. l)i:stinctionbetween Mind and its Objects(1913). In that book He doesnot exhort us, he doesnot arguewith us, he merelybids llosanquetwelcomed Realism as an ally in the Idealists' battle us cast off our sophisticationand look at the world through ngainst the theory of representativeperception and, what is the naive eyes of absolute innocence;yet the world he thus ordinarily associatedwith it, the 'brickbat theory of matter'. presents to us is complexand sophisticatedin the extreme.Most llut his final verdict on Realism was oeverthelessadverse: it philosophers have refused to follow his guidance; for all the rinned gravely, he argued, by speaking of mind as if it were acclaim which greetedits appearance,Space, Time and Deity is rirnply one particular entity in a world of particular entities. 'I not now widelyread. But it hasits staunch admirers, some of them nllruld comparemy consciousnessto an atmospherer'Bosanquet prepared to maintainthat it is themost important contribution to wrote,'not to a thing at all. Its natureis to include.The nature of philosophy our century has known. olrjectsis to be included.. . . I never seemto think in the form When Alexanderreached Oxford from Australia in lg77rohis "nry mind is here and the tree is there".' fust contactswere with men of note in the Idealist movement_ In sharpopposition, Alexander maintains that consciousnessis Green,Nettleship and A. C. Bradleywere all tutors at Balliol in I property of certain organic structues; the tree, for him, is not Alexander'stime. He wasnaturally influencedby their teachings; lr rny consciousnessbut beforeit, as an object 'compresent'with and even when he broke with the Idealists,they continued to n consciousbeing. Alexander, indeed, was permanently influenced speakof him with a respectthey rarely showedto New Realists_ hy Moore's 'Refutation of Idealism'; although he was attracted althoughthis charitydid not survivethe bleaknessof Cambridge by the neutral monist reductionof the 'mental act' to an organic whereMcTaggart, forgetting his own blackenedpots, complained rcsponsehe could never persuade himself wholly to reject the of Space, Time and Deity that.in every chapterwe come across tct-object analysis. For Alexander, however - and this brings someview which no philosopher,except professor: Alexander. has hirncloser to Holt and,Perrythan to Moore - an act of mind is a ever maintained'.It would be inhuman to expectthe arch_enemy utnation, a responseto an object. It is such a conation, not a of Time to praiseits arch-prophet. cognitiveact, which cognizesan objecf.ttAnd the'content'ofa Influencesof a distinctly different sort were also at work on rrrcntalact, for Alexander, is not a pale copy of its object; it Alexander;the new biologyand thenew experimentalpsychology consistsin thosepsychological features peculiar to the mental act won his admiration. Stout and Alexander,indeed. collaborated 0s a process- its intensity and its direction. ' in the defenceofpsychology againstits Oxford critics. Alexand- lf this is the real situation, if knowledgeis nothing more than er's friendsdid not know whetherto be amusedor alarmedby his llrc 'compresence'of a mental act and an object, how account, psychologicalexperiments. This was not merely the enthusiasm wc might ask, for the very existenceof views like Bosanquet's? of youth; Space,Time and Deity appealsmore often to experi- t*'hat confusesBosanquet, Alexander argues,is his acceptanceof mental psychologythan to any other form of empirical inquiry. the common assumptionthat in contemplatingan object we are Similarly, thti influenceof biology, so apparentin Alexander's nt the sametime contemplatingthe act which knows it. Then the firstbook Moral Orderand progress (l gg9)- which belongsto the consequencefollows that in perceivingXmy real object is not X school of Leslie Stephen- was never wholly to be dissipated; but 'my consciousnessof X', within which X is somehowan 266 267 A HUNDREDYEARS OF PHILOSOPHY THE NEW REALISTS .in ingredient.Since, however, Xis obviouslynot my conscious- non-existent object before us but in crl$ misplac@ a real object. ness'in that senseof 'consciousness'inwhich it is identical The sameanalysis applies in principle,he tries to show,to more .consciousness' with an individual mind, has to be convertedinto a dillicult cases.Suppose we wrongly believethat a patch of grey general .atmosphere, ,. 'medium'or vrithin which thingsexist. puperagainst a red backgroundis green.In this case,there is no Alexander, however, is determined to retain the common_ grcen anywhere in the neighbourhood of the paper, as there was sense distinction betweenindividual minds and their objects;he blue in the neighbourhoodof the mountain. But the important cuts the ground from under the Idealist argument by denying point, to Alexander, is that green at least existssomewhere, and that we ever contemplatea mental act. Acts cannot be contem_ it is therespread out over an €xpansejustas we now supposeit to plated, ,lived but only 'enjoyed, - through', as it is sometimes hc spread over the paper. Both the object apprehended and its put. Thus 'our consciousnessof an object, is never, for us, an nrodeof combination with other objectsalready exist in the world; object of contemplation; what we contemplateis the object, our error lies in misplacingor mistiming them: we do not create simply - although we at the same time enjoy the act which is n wholly novel object. This theory of error, which is essentialto consciousof it.tz The mental act and its object are sharply sun- Alexander'sRealism, is worked out in Space,Time and Deity dered. Objectscannot be enjoyed, mental acts c€urnotbe con_ with a wealth of detail which can here only be mentioned,not templated.From 'an angel'spoint of view' _ the point of view conveyed. ofa beinghigher than ourselves- our consciousact would be an 'The temper of Realism,' Alexander wrote in The Basisof object; an angel would contemplateour consciousact as some- Realism,'is to de-anthropomorphize;to order man and mind to thing compresentwith its object.But we arenot angels;for us the their proper place among the world of finite things; on the one mental act exists only as an enjoyment. hnnd,to divest physicalthings ofthe colouring which they have To know an object, for Alexander, is to be a mental act com- rcceivedfrom the vanity or arrogance of mind; on the other, to present with it. The familiar questioninevitably occursto us: if ussignthem alongwith mindstheir duemeasure of self-existence.' its objectsare compresentwith the mind, how can it fail to appre- ThusRealism, as he conceivesit' is naturalistic;for it, the human hend them as they are? In reply, Alexander, following Nunn, bcing is one finite thing arnongstothers, not the ruler and lord first of all admonishesus not to confusebetween selective appre- of the finite universe.Such a naturalismis usuallycondemned on hension and error. A mind is consciousonly of what stirs an the ground that, as Alexander expresses the accusation, it impulse in it; its 'object, is not the completething with which 'clegradesmind and robs it of its richnessand its value'. Alex' it is compresent,but only a selectionfrom that completething. rnder's aim in Space,Time and Deity is to put mind in its place This incompletenessis not, by itself, error. If two people seea without degradingit. For this purpose,a useful instrument lay table, one as a flat edge,the other as a corner, neither is in error, nearat hand: the theory of 'emergentevolution'. The conception Alexanderargues, unless he wrongly believesthat what is true of of 'emergence'goes back at leastas far as G. H. l*wes' Prohlems his'object'is true of the tableas a whole.In general_ a point of Life and Mind (1875); but it had more recently been worked Royce had also stressed- there is no error involved ."..1y in up into a theory of evolution by the philosopher-biologist C. havingart object before our mind. If we look at a distant moun- Lloyd Morgan.rzLloyd Morgan hoped to tread a midway path tain, for example,we have blue before our minds; so far all is between'mechanism' and'vitalism'. The mechanistshad set out v/€ll: we makea mistakeonly if we go on to ascribethe blue to the to show that organisms are 'nothing but' physicorchemical distant mountain..Then we are confusing,according to Alexan_ structures, which have assumedtheir present shape as a result der, betweenone thing and another; we are imagining that an of the operations of natural selection. For the vitalist, on the object lies within a certain spatio-temporalcontour when it contrary, an organism possessesa'vital force'; it is, indeed a actuallylies outsideit. The error doesnot consistin our havinga medium through which life strugglestowards perfection.l3 268 269 A HUNDREDYEARS OF PHILOSOPHY THE NEW REALISTS Lloyd Morgan had no patiencewith vitatism as a biologicd for their solution on the solution of the problem what Spaceand theory. 'With all due respect,'he wrote in Instinct and Experi- 'l'inre are and, more particularly, how they are related to each ence,'for M. Bergson'spoetic genius- for his doctrine of Life is other.' Philosophers have usually depreciated time; this is phil- more akin to poetry than to scieDce- his facile criticisms of obviouslytrue of Bradley and McTaggart, amongstrecent Darwin's magnificent and truly scientific generalizations only osophers,and the samecan be said,to a large degree,of Russell' serveto show to how large a degreethe intermingling of problems "f'here is some sense,'he had written in Our Knowledgeof the involving the metaphysicsof Source with those of scientific lixrernal World,'n which time is an unimportant and superficial interpretationmay darken counseland serveseriously to hinder characteristic of reality. Past and future must be acknowledged the progressof biology.' Vitalism, he argues,is not a scientific t o beas real asthe present,and a certain emancipationfrom slavery philosopher hypothesis,it is a metaphysics- a theory about the 'source' of to time is essentialto philosophicalthought" Any evolution,not a descriptionofevolutionary processes.The theory who approachesphilosophy through logic is likely to arguein this ofemergentevolution, on the other hand, purportsto be a careful wty: on the face of it, implication is not a temporal relation and descriptionof what actually happensin evolution, a description 'tluth', as logic understandsit, is eternal.One may note, in con- which at the same time brings to light the inadequacyof the tlust. that for Alexander 'truth' is relative. 'Truth,' he says, 'mechanical' view that living processesare merely physico- 'vories and grows obsoleteor even turns to falsehood'; to be chemical.In a genuineevolution, Morgan maintains- as distinct 'lrue' is to be acceptedby the'social mind'and what that mind from the routine repetition of an establishedhabit of action - lucceptsvaries from time to time.l4And of inference,which like there is always'more in the conclusionsthan is containedin the thc ldealistshe takes to be the subjectmatter of logic, he writes premises'; in other words, the resultant processis never'noth- rh&tit 'betraysmost plainly that truth is not merelyreality but its ing but' the processesout of which it has evolved.Thus it is unity with mind, for inferenceweaves propositions into a system' such but only that modes of behaviour - consciousness,for example - can rrrrl systemand coherencebelong not to reality as evolve out of physico-chemical processeswithout themselves irr its relation to a mind.' Not even truths, then, and not even being reducibleto, although they are continuouswith, suchpro- krgicalrelations axe eternal; Alexanderis'taking time seriously' cesses, withavengeance. ' 6 This doctrine of emergentevolution supptes the framework for Bergsonhad already sought to rehabilitatetime' But Bergson Alexander'sSpace, Time and Deity.It might seemstrange that a clcvatedtime, Alexanderthought, at the expenseof Space,and in theorydeveloped by a biologistfor biologyshould be thus employ- tho processleft it completely mysterious' In this respect' the ed in a metaphysics;metaphysics is most often envisagedas a oppositionbetween Bergson and Alexander is complete: Berg- supra-scientificinquiry, in which scienceis, if not superseded,at norl'sphilosophy is a protest againstthe interpretationof time in least transcended.But for Alexander, metaphysicsis itself a rputial terms, whereasAlexander maintains that this is how it science,distinguishable from, say, physics only by its greater nrust be interpreted, althougfr equally, he grants, space must degrepof comprehensiveness.Although its methoddiffers from hc interpretedin temporal terms. Neither spacenor time, in- that of a natural scienceyet its conclusionsmust accordwith the rlccd, is intelligible in itself; each can be understood only by conclusionsof scientists,and it can well take a hint from their rclbrenceto the other, as an aspectof Space-Time.rs discoveries.For its subject-matteris simply those pervasive Alexanderdid not think it necessaryto show in detail that time features of things which are variously exemplffied in the different rrrrtl space by themselvesare unintelligible. In their negative fieldsof science:Space, Time, and the Categories. rulguments,he was preparedto follow Bradley and McTaggart: pure Spaceand Time come frst: 'it is not too much to say,' AIex- Irlrrc time would have to be at once pure successionand ander writes, 'that all the vital problems of philosophy depend rlurttion. But he does not conclude, as they did, that time is 270 271 A HUNDRED YEARS OF PHILOSOPHY THE NEW REALISTS 'unreal'; we meet it in our experience,Alexander argues,and rays,'is through-and-throughhistorical, the sceneof rnotion'.16 must describeit aswe find it there.In that experience,however, it A r,;ntio-temporaluniverse, for him, is by its nature a rnivers€ is neverpure time; our experienceis of the spatio-temporal.The In gltrwth: this is the point at which Alexander'stheory of Space- succession we encounterin our concreteexperience is the suc_ 'l'lrnc uniteswith the doctrine of emergentevolution. cessive place; occupationof a the spacewith which we havedeal- 'I'hc part of Space, Time and Deity gn which Alexander ings is not an undifferentiatedinert mass but is at different in_ ;rnrticularlyprided himself is Book Il, Of the Categories.As we stants diversely occupied. Once we recognize these facts, the Itnvcscen, he regardsthe categoriesas the pervasivecharacters of 'contradictions' in Spaceand Time, Alexanderthinks, lose their thirrgs;this pervasiveness,he thinks,needs some explanation; it terrors. slircs from the fact that the categoriesare propertiesor deter- On the naive view of Space and Time, they are twin boxes rrirrutionsof the primordial stuff, Space-Time.They belong to within .box' which things move about; in reaction againstthe ovclything,just becauseeverything is a complex generatedin theory, philosophers have attempted to identify Time with the !l1ruc:c-Time. relation of temporal successionand Spacewith the relation of Wc can illustrate the manner of his procedureby referenceto spatial coexistence.But the relational theory of Spaceand Time, lwo categorieswhich have already occupied our attention in Alexanderargues, ignoresthe fact that the termsin suchrelations ol lrcrcontexts - universalityand relation.There are, he argues,no are themselves spatialand temporal, and that it would involve a 'pnrliculars'and no'universals';everlthing is an'individual', vicious infinite regressto try to reduce such spatio-temporality l,e, is both particular and universal.It is'particular' in so far as to a further set of relations. Furthermore - an objection which ll in distinguishablefrom other things of the same'general plan carries him to the heart of his metaphysics-,relation', like any of construction'; its 'universality' consistsin the fact that the other category,is intelligible only if it is interpretedas a mode of rnrncplan of constructionis repeatedelsewhere, whether as the spatio-temporality. To use it to give an account of Space-Time $onstructionof that same finite being (as a marble keeps the is to reverse the true order of dependence. rnrnc form as it rolls along the ground) or of different finite Alexanderproposes a third view of Space-Time:it is, he says, hoings(as the marblesin a.bag all have the same generalcon- the pickwick- 'stuff' out of which thingsare made(although in a rtrtrction).This possibility of repetition, Alexander argues,de- ian senseof 'stuff', since matter is subsequentto Space-Time). pontlsupon the uniformity of Space-Time,which enablesa thing This is not an easytheory to comprehend,nor do Alexander,s lo clrrngeits placewhile retainingthe sameplan of construction. elucidations and elaborations always relieve his readers' be- Il lhat respect,to talk of'universality', accordingto Alexander, musement. Perhapswhat he wants to say will be a little clearer in lr rirnplya way of drawing attention to Space-Time'suniformity. another form: Space-Time,he argues, is identical with pure l'rrlthermore,a'plan'is simplya regularmode of behaviour;the Motion; to say that Space-Timeis the stutr of which things are rrnivcrsal,as Alexander describesit, is not a Platonic form, .Motion' madeis to affirm that a thing is a complexof motions. r'lurrrgeless,immutable and eternal, but a pattern of motions, is 'the occupationof points which successivelybecome present'; 'lnstirrctwith Time'. ."and this occupation of a point by a successionof instants is l{elations,similarly, are essentiallyspatio-temporal. Alexander " precisely .Space-Time'. what Alexandermeans by He would, he rlelirrcsa relationas 'the whole situationinto which its termsenter, says,happily speak of the ultimate Stuff as Motion instead of trr virtue of that relation'. Thus the maternal relation, for ex- Space-Time,were it not that we fnd it harder to represent to nrrrgrlc,is a set of actionson the part of the mother and a set of owselvesthe idea of an all-encompassingMotion than that of an flr'lions on the part of the child, consideredin so far a.sthey all-encompassingSpace-Time. Alexander's metaphysics, indeed, 'eqtnblisha connexion'between mother and child or 'initiate a .the is in many ways akin to that of Heraclitus; universe', he Itnrrsuction'between them. A relation, therefore, is a concrete 272 273 A HUNDRED YEARS OF PHILOSOPHY THF NEW REALISTS whole, not a vaguely-conceived 'link' between terms. Often, gcncral pattern of ernergence. When Space-Time or motion Alexander maintains, it is more important than the terms; as lcochesa certain degree of complexity qualities emerge: fus| the when, in time of war, although we are aware that the conflicts ro-colled 'primary qualities' such as size, shape and number, taking place involve men, we envisagethe conflict-situation wlrich are 'empirical modes of the categories',then secondary clearly, the individual men scarcely at all. But these are, com- qrrulitieslike colour, which stand to the primary qualities as paratively speaking,matters of detail: the important point, for rrrirrdstands to body, then living processes,then mind - and deity. Alexander, is that a 'relation' is a spatio-temporaltransaction tu oachc:ne, we must acceptwith 'natural piety' the fact that between spatio-temporal constituents, the transactions having a ncw qualitiesemerge; there is no 'explanation' of this fact, it just 'sense' or a 'direction'. To put the same point differently, a lr the case.18The determinationof the sequenceand number of relation is motionspassing between systems of motions.tT rtugcs is, he says, a problem for natural science: the meta- From the Categories,Alexander passesin Book III to 'The plrysicianmust be content to sketchthe generalconception of a Order and Problemsof Empirical Existence'which many of his 'lovcl of existence', and to illustrate the relationship holding critics have consideredto be the most profitable section of Space, botweensuch levels. Time and Deity. So far it has simply been said that the empirical, Wc can now summarizeAlexander's theory of finite existences. qualities a thing possessesare 'correlative with' their underlying llvcry finite existence,in the first place, is compresent with motions. But 'correlation' is an intolerably vague conception; (rpotio-temporally connected with) other finite existences.A the problem now is to make it more precise.The clue, he thinks" tlrritcexistence is a substance,i.e. a volume of Space-Timewith a comesfrom the mind-body relation. detcrminatecontour; it is the sceneof movements,which have This is an unexpectedsuggestion; most philosophers have seen oachof them a'history. They appearin time, exist through time, in the mind-body relation one of the most intractable of all nnd end in time. There are three distinguishable aspects of a philosophical problems. Alexander does not agree. Observation llring: its spatio-temporality,the processeswhich occur in it, and and reflectionmake it perfectlyapparent, he thinks, that certain; llr plan of construction, or configuration. The first, from our processeswith the distinctiveproperty of being consciousoccurg poirrtof view, is the thing s place,date, dwation and extent; the in the sameplaces and at the sametimes as'highly differentiated rocond its qualities, perceived as sensibilia; the third is its .correlation' and complex processesof our living body'. The of 'nnture', which we take as the objectof our thought. mind and body consists,then, in the fact tbat the very samepro-, Alexander'stheory of knowledgenow findsits homewithin this cesswhich is experiencedfrom within, or 'enjoyed', as a mental nletuphysicalframework, as a specialexemplification of it. A processcan be'contemplated' as a neural one. nrirrd,like anything else, is a particulaxfinite existence,and is Physiological processes of a certain type and complexity 'cunrpresent'with a variety of other finite existences,'Com' accordingto Alexander,are consciousprocesses. Consciousnessri prcscnce',it is important to observe,does not connote simul- to expressthe matter in terms of evolution, 'emerges' at a certain Inncity.Many of the eventswith whicha mind is'compresent'- point in the development of living processes.No knowledge of or which,as Alexanderalso expresses the matter, form part of its physiology, he considers, could enable us prior to experienceto 'pcrspective'- occurreda very long time ago, the eventsit predict that this quality would emerge,even although, after tho, pcr.ccivesin the distant stars being a striking example. This, event, we can deterrninethe degreeof complexity exhibited by,, ltowcver, is not peculiar to mind; everything reacts to events .Conscious. those physiologicalprocesses which are conscious. wlrichhave already passed away. We can think of anythingwhat- ness' is a novel, unpredictable quality, for all that it has its rootr. trlrver as the point of departurefor a 'perspective',which will in, and is determined by, physiological pro@sses. Irreludeall thoseevents in various placesand of various datesto Working with this 'clue to quality', Alexander describesthc;t which it is related, with which, that is, it 'has transactions'. 274 275 A HUNDRED YEARS OF PHILOSOPHY THE NEW REALISTS Space-Time, indeed, is- built up of such perspectives, not of plusis was simultaneous ctoss-sections.te critical and analytic rather than metaphysical.He nrlnriredAlexander gxeatly,and thought that Alexander'swork How doesDeity fit into this metaphysics? That is the question ovcrshadowedhis own, but the atmosphereof his philosophy is A.lexander sets out to answer in ntok Iy of Space, Time and tlrrrlof Moore's Cambridge,where he had been a student;he Deity. Deity, Alexanderargues, is the next stagein evolution; it rlitl not moveeasily amid Alexander'sabstractions. From his own bearsthe samerelation to mind as mind doesto living processes ( iiflirrd Lectures Theismand Cosmology(1940) and Mind and and living processesto the physico-chemical. For us to predict its I )dty (1941)very little emergesin the way of a definiteconclusion: nature is impossible. To call Deity .mind,, for example, would nrt 116r" than that a transcendentaltheism is 'not proven' be comparable to assertingthat living pro""r* are nothing but ttltltoughan immanenttheism has some measure of attractiveness physico-chemicalprocesses: nerty must no doubt De mind, but lirr o reasonableman. its distinctiveproperties will not lie in that fact. Another Scottish professor, Kemp Considered thus, the scholar N. Smith, Alexander admits, God is ideal rather than actrral, rurrthorof classicalcommentaries on Descartes,Hume and Kant, in the making but not yet made.If we demand .the an actuar rtood much closerto Alexander,for all that he describedhimself God, that can only be infinite world with its nisus towards ttsnn 'Idealist'. His Prolegomenato an ldealist Theoryof Know- deityl. why, we may object, should we not describespace-Time lillge (1924\is an attempt, as he expressesthe matter, to formu- - which is both infinite and creative _ as God? One reason, lutc 'an idealisttheory of knowledgealong realistlines.' 2t There according to Alexander, is that no one could worship, or feel a ls, he argues,no necessaryconnexion between Idealism and sub- religious emotion towards, Space-Time; and it is the object of a icctivism;subjectivism is metaphysicallyneutral, lending itself as metaphysicsof deity to discover an entity towards which such an tttucl'rto the purposesof a Mach as to the purposesof a Berkeley, emotion is appropriate. He admits the abstract possibility that 'l lrc Idealistcan alsobe a realist; what he hasto show,according metaphysicsmight lead the philosopher to the conclusionthat kr Kemp Smith, is not that reality is mind-dependentbut that it there is no such entity; but his own metaphysics,he considers, incorporates'spiritualvalues', that these,indeed, operate'on a leads towards deity, not away from it. Ana tiris, he argues,is a r'osrnicscale'. Thus much of Kemp Smith's argument is an point in its favour, for .a philosophy which leavesone portion of nl(cn1ptto demonstratethe many-sidednessof Nature, its rich- huT* experiencesuspended without attachment to the world of rrcssand resourcefulness,qirite in opposition to the tendencyof truth is gravely open to suspicion,; the presumption must afways rrrtrnyidealists to deadenNature in order to makeof mind the one be, he thinks, that to every appetite there corrlsponds an object crrlivener. which could satisfy it, and the religious emotioi, on his account Kemp Smith is able to absorb into his Idealism both Alex- is such an appetite, to be satisfied 9f it, with no object less than rrrrder'scritique of subjectivismand his theory of natural proces- nI this Deity was very different ?"ity. from the God of or_ scs.But he doesnot go all the way with Alexander,particularly in dinary religion, not least in the fact that there is no reasonfor regarding Deity lcgardto the independenceofsecondary qualities. He agreesthat as the last stage in evolution, did not seriousty perturb Alexander. Ncnsaare not in the mind; he still thinks that they exist only in tlcpcndenceupon an organism.They are on his view a biological *, A number of other philosophers prepared were to describe tlcvice,enabling the organism to deal with an environmentso themselves.as Realists, and felt the in;; of Alexander,s conrplexthat to seeit accuratelywould be to find it overwhelming. philosophy, without making the transition irom to When we look at water, for example,we seesomething continu- metaphysics.John Lafud,2oin such works as "plrtemolory .down_to_earth, A Study in Realism ous and stable,not a dervish-danceof molecules;and if we were (1920)expounded a _ Realism he liked to rem_ rrot thus deluded,it would wholly bewilder us. We are deceived ember that his birth-place was near Reid's - in which the em- only becauseNature is taking care of our interests. 276 277 A HUNDREDYBARS OF PHILOSOPHY Another philosopher who saw virtue in the resurgence of, CHAPTER 12 realism was C. E. M. Joad, who moved with it from 'The: Refutation of Idealism'to TheArulysis of Matter.ButThe New Critical Realismand AmericanNaturalism Realism was too pale and emaciated to claim a permanent lien, over Joad's wide-ranging affections. Within a seam-bursting eclecticism,Russell, Bergson and Plato had somehowall to make I r the patentslaw had applicationto philosophicaltrademarks, room for themselves, as the representatives, respectively, of 'critical realist' would havegiven rise to somepretty legal battles' matter, Iife and value.22The result was a conglomeration of con- 'lil be a realist,and yet to be free from any suspicionof naivet6- siderable popular appeal but little philosophical consequence. tlrut was a prospectwhich attracted a variety of philosophers' The fact remains that Joad - an invigoratingly polemical broad- howeverdiverse their objectivesin every other respect' caster, essafst and lecturer at a time when the ideal of 'good Itritishr critical realism was generatedin Scotlandin the last Reid's taste' was threatening to destroy personality - represented quorter of the nineteenthcentury. There, as in America, 'philosophy' to a large segmentof the British public. What this '('ommon-sense'philosophy had not been wholly submerged proves, either about philosophy or about the British publig I boncaththe waveof enthusiasmfor exotic metaphysicalsystems' should not care to say. Wc noteits persistence,for example,in the writings of that higily ItliosyncraticScot, S. S. Laurie,2who' for all his Idealism' was prcparedroundly to assertthat 'I am consciousof an objectat a rlintonce,which isextended,localized, configurated, coloured, and of acertain mass'.Another Scot,Andrew Seth(Pringle-Pattison) w&s,as we have already seen,3no less insistentupon Nature's Independenceof Man, although his long discipleshipto Kant mude it impossiblefor him to return whole-heartedlyto the Scottishtradition of 'natural realism'. It is to mark the fact that hc hopedto be a realistwithout ceasingto be a Kantian that Seth ttcscribedhimself as a 'critical realist'. 'The consciousbeing,' he writes in opposition to any form of nalve realism, 'cannot in the nature of things overleap and trans' cend itself'; what we are directly aware of, he therefore argues' nlust be lin our mirld,' evenalthough it points to a world inde- pcndent of ourselves.He was naturally a@used,as Americao crirical realists were to be, of attempting to reinstate Locke's lhcory, universally condemned, of representativeperception' [.ocke, Seth replies, made a serious blunder; he thought that knowledgeis of idas,whereasin fact it takesplace throughideas' Although we are directly awareof ideas' they are not what we hnow.At this point, Sethjoins handswith Stout, to whoseearly work he freely refers. Scth'smain critical attack is directedagainst phenomenalism: wcrcexperience not referredto objects,he argues,it would be an n8 279