The Cambridge History of Philosophy 1870–1945 editedby THOMAS BALDWIN University of York publishe d by the pre ss syndicate of the unive rsity of cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom cambridge unive rsity pre ss The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge, cb2 2ru,UK 40 West 20th Street, New York, ny 10011-4211, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, vic 3207, Australia Ruiz de Alarcon´ 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa http://www.cambridge.org C Cambridge University Press 2003 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2003 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge Typeface Bembo 10.25/12.5 pt. System LATEX 2ε [tb] A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library isbn 0 521 59104 x hardback CONTENTS List of contributors page xi Introduction 1 thomas baldwin I 1870–1914 1 Positivism, Idealism, and Pragmatism 1 Positivist thought in the nineteenth century 11 rom harre´ 2 Neo-Kantianism: the German idealism movement 27 christophe r adair-tote ff 3 Idealism in Britain and the United States 43 jame s allard 4 Idealism in Russia 60 david bakhurst 5 Bergson 67 f.c.t. moore 6 Pragmatism 74 christophe r hookway 2 Psychology and Philosophy 7 Psychology: old and new 93 gary hatfie ld v vi Contents 8 The unconscious mind 107 se bastian gardne r 3 Logic, mathematics, and judgement 9 Logic: revival and reform 119 pe te r simons 10 Foundations of mathematics 128 michae l halle tt 11 Theories of judgement 157 artur rojszczak and barry smith 12 The logical analysis of language 174 david be ll 4 Philosophy and the new physics 13 The atomism debate 195 e li zahar 14 Theories of space-time in modern physics 207 luciano boi 5 The idea of social science 15 The debate over the Geisteswissenschaftenin German philosophy 221 r. lanie r ande rson 16 From political economy to positive economics 235 margare t schabas 17 Sociology and the idea of social science 245 ge offre y hawthorn 6 Ethics, politics, and legal theory 18 Utilitarians and idealists 255 ross harrison 19 Nietzsche 266 e dgar sle inis Contents vii 20 The new realism in ethics 277 christian pille r 21 Individualism vs. collectivism 289 pe te r nicholson 22 Marxism and anarchism 297 ale x callinicos 23 Legal theory 309 stanleyl.paulson 7 Philosophy of religion and art 24 Sceptical challenges to faith 321 jame s livingston 25 The defence of faith 329 jame s livingston 26 Art and morality: aesthetics at 1870 337 paul guye r 27 Form and feeling: aesthetics at the turn of the century 348 paul guye r In terlude Philosophy and the First World War 365 thomas baldwin II 1914–1945 8 Logic and philosophy: the analytic programme 28 Logical atomism 383 pe te r simons 29 The scientific world conception: logical positivism 391 alan richardson 30 The achievements of the Polish school of logic 401 jan wole nski´ 31 Logic and philosophical analysis 417 thomas baldwin viii Contents 9 The diversity of philosophy 32 The continuing idealist tradition 427 le slie armour 33 Transformations in speculative philosophy 438 jame s bradle y 34 Realism, naturalism, and pragmatism 449 corne lius de lane y 35 French Catholic philosophy 461 danie l le duc-faye tte 36 Spanish philosophy 469 manue l garrido 37 The phenomenological movement 477 he rman philipse 38 Heidegger 497 raymond ge uss 39 Latin American philosophy 507 e duardo rabossi 40 Japanese philosophy 513 thomas kasulis 10 Knowledge, language, and the end of metaphysics 41 Sensible appearances 521 michae l martin 42 The renaissance of epistemology 533 luciano floridi 43 The solipsism debates 544 david be ll 44 Language 554 david holdcroft 45 The end of philosophy as metaphysics 565 simon gle ndinning Contents ix 11 Philosophy and the exact sciences 46 First-order logic and its rivals 581 michae l scanlan 47 The golden age of mathematical logic 592 john dawson 48 General relativity 600 thomas ryckman 49 Scientific explanation 608 ge orge gale 50 The rise of probabilistic thinking 621 jan von plato 12 Mind and its place in nature 51 Vitalism and emergence 631 brian mclaughlin 52 Behaviourism and psychology 640 gary hatfie ld 53 Gestalt psychology 649 thomas le ahe y 54 Wittgenstein’s conception of mind 658 marie mcginn 13 Philosophy and social science 55 The methodology of the social sciences 669 jame s bohman 56 The rise of social anthropology 679 me rrile e h. salmon 57 Western Marxism and ideology critique 685 ale x callinicos x Contents 14 Ethics, religion, and the arts 58 From intuitionism to emotivism 695 jonathan dancy 59 Philosophy of religion 706 richard h. robe rts 60 Literature as philosophy 714 rhiannon goldthorpe 61 Aesthetics between the wars: art and liberation 721 paul guye r 15 Law and politics 62 Hans Kelsen and normative legal positivism 739 stanleyl.paulson 63 The liberal democratic state: defences and developments 744 richard be llamy 64 The liberal democratic state: critics 755 walte r adamson Biobibliographical appendix 765 Bibliography 814 Index 924 1 POSITIVIST THOUGHT IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY rom harre´ INTRODUCTION The positivist impulse, to accept only what is certain and to reject anything in any degree speculative, from its earliest intimations in classical Greece to its most recent revival in contemporary anti-realist philosophy of science, expresses itself in two main ways. It appears as a doctrine about the limits of what human beings can legitimately claim to know, displayed as an austere epistemological attitude. This leads to a foundationalism according to which only what is im- mediately given by the senses can be known for certain. It also appears as a doctrine about what can legitimately be taken to exist, displayed as an austere ontological attitude. This leads to a scepticism about the existence of un- observables of all sorts, from God to the material substance thought by many philosophers and scientists to account for common experience. Positivism is at root driven by an impulse, attitude, or frame of mind, which expresses itself in a variety of philosophical theses and arguments. That positivistic arguments and analyses are found convincing has perhaps more to do with an attitude of austerity and scepticism, than with their intrinsic worth. Always ready to wield Ockham’s Razor against the proliferation of kinds of entities which people are tempted to believe in, positivists could be said to hold that it is better to ac- cept less than one perhaps could, for fear of believing more than perhaps one should. The topic of this chapter, the rise of positivism in the nineteenth century, picks out just one of the high points of a repeated cycle of waxing and wan- ing enthusiasm for positivist austerity. Harsher and more relaxed attitudes to what one should reasonably believe have come and gone since antiquity. In the sixteenth century the debates about astronomy turned on an opposition between positivism and realism in science. Should one believe in the reality of the heliocentric theory or was it just a convenient calculating device for pre- dicting the comings and goings of ‘lights in the sky’? Considerations rather like those canvassed in the contemporary controversies in philosophy of science were 11 12 Rom Harre´ advanced by the protagonists of each position, such as the positivist Osiander and the realist Kepler. In the eighteenth century the positivist impulse led some authors, especially Berkeley, to a kind of idealism, at least with respect to our knowledge of the material world. Only that which was perceptible should be held to exist. But in the nineteenth century positivism stood in opposition to idealism, yet in paradoxical ways. Its most powerful and influential nineteenth- century advocate, Ernst Mach, seemed to share a great deal with Berkeley. Both thought that the human senses provided not only the only proper grounding for claims about material reality, but also exhausted the realm of the real. Berkeley’s hypothesis of a spiritual, that is, non-material, power to account for what peo- ple experience, might have been anathema to Mach, but was revived by an- other influential nineteenth-century adherent to the positivist attitude, Herbert Spencer. For expository purposes one can divide the dramatis personae of the philo- sophical advocacy of positivism into three national groups. In Germany a form of positivism developed among physical scientists, consciously in opposition to the prevailing idealism of German philosophy. Tosome extent these overtly aca- demic debates reflected important disputes about the hegemony of disciplines in the German universities. The positivist philosophers, such as Mach, were pro- fessional scientists. For them such Hegelian definitions as ‘This vanishing and self- generation of space in time and time in space, a process in which time posits itself spatially as place, but in which place too, as indifferent spatiality, is immediately posited as temporal: this is Motion’ (Hegel 1830 [1970]: 41) were not far short of insulting. In France the positivists were part of the anti-clerical movement which was expressed in the revolution of the late eighteenth century. Auguste Comte formulated positivism in the context of a history of the emancipation of the intellect from the superstition and myth he found in the institutionalised religion of his time. The scientific roots of French positivism were in the human sciences. In England the authors who advocated and defended something like positivism were united only by their positions in certain methodological controversies in the philosophy of science.