The Northern Line No 5 August 2007 An on-line journal dedicated to the life and work of John Anderson Edited by Mark Weblin. This journal is funded entirely from donations. Please forward any donations to 226 Blaxland Rd, Wentworth Falls 2782 Email: [email protected] In this issue: John Anderson in Scotland Introduction....................................................................................................................................................................................1 The Democratic Intellect ...............................................................................................................................................................5 From Idealist to Realist................................................................................................................................................................13 Introduction Very little is known of John Anderson’s residence in Scotland and of his writings which survive from that time, very little is widely available. Jim Packer has done some important work in the past few years, typing out some of John’s essays including his M.A. thesis on William James.1 The remainder of the primary material, including the correspondence between John and Jenny, exists only in manuscript form in the Anderson Archives.2 In the only continuous treatment of this subject, Brian Kennedy devotes a few chapters to John’s activities from this time and this research was based on three primary sources: John’s letters to Jenny, John’s academic essays, and John’s contributions to the Glasgow University Magazine (G.U.M.).3 Kennedy had access to the Anderson papers while Sandy Anderson was still alive (i.e. before the Anderson Archive was created) and from this material Kennedy derives a number a conclusions about John’s personality and character: John was engaged in sibling rivalry with his elder brother William; John’s emotional demands on his mother may have contributed to her going into a sanatorium; John maintained a public academic persona which conflicted with his private radical persona; John studied for two degrees at Glasgow.4 The following two articles have been written as chapters for my biography of Anderson’s life and influence. ‘The Democratic Intellect’ will appear in A Philosophic Life and will focus on the general social and cultural influences which played a part in Anderson’s life. ‘From Idealist to Realist’ will appear in From Realist to Idealist and will deal more specifically with Anderson’s philosophical development. In the preparation of these chapters, I have referred to some of the papers from this period held in the Anderson Archives and consulted some works pertaining to the social, political and cultural life of Scotland during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These latter works include George Davie’s work on the ‘Democratic Intellect’, A.O. Morgan’s work on Keir Hardie, and a number of academic articles on Scottish philosophy. While in one sense this is rather narrow background reading, it has been sufficient to illustrate the general social trends existing in Scotland at that time which provides a context to some of the minutiae contained in the Anderson archives. One point which emerges clearly from an understanding of this part of the Anderson Archives, is that as far as Anderson’s political and aesthetic and literary writings go, there is almost no surviving material on these subjects from 1 Jim Baker has also written an excellent account of John’s intellectual background and development in Scotland. See Baker, A.J. ‘Anderson’s intellectual background and formative influences’ Heraclitus Part I No. 33 Oct. 1993 pp 4-12; Part II No. 34 Jan. 1994 pp 5-8. 2 Series 1 and 2 of the Anderson Archives contains all of Anderson’s remaining material from his Scottish period. Series 2 contains two copies of Anderson’s logic book while Series 1 contains a large amount of miscellaneous material. The only known omission from the Anderson Archives from this time is John’s prize winning essay, ‘Is the State a Moral Agent?’, which Sydney University Archives has recently agreed to acquire from Glasgow University Archives. Series 18 & 23 of the Archives contains the correspondence between John and Jenny. 3 Kennedy, B. A Passion to Oppose MUP, Melbourne, 1996 4 Kennedy op cit pp 22, 35, 37 2 his residence in Scotland. This implies that John’s writings on these subjects during his early years in Sydney (say 1927 to 1931) are the main sources of evidence for inferences about what political and aesthetic views he may have had in Scotland and what cultural influences he may have been exposed to. For example, John’s writings for the theoretical journal of the Communist Party of Australia, The Communist, between 1927 and 1928 must be expressions of the political theory he had formed in Scotland prior to his departure. Similarly, his 1930 paper on ‘Ulysses’ is the earliest paper in existence that deals with James Joyce and the views presented in his many papers on Joyce and other writers and literary themes for the S.U. Literary Society during its early years must have been developed while he was in Scotland. Similarly, the substance of John’s early papers on Freethought must also have been formed in Scotland. With regard to John’s philosophic writings, there exists a good collection of material in the archives from 1916 to 1926 which enables us to understand his philosophic development clearly. One interesting point of contrast between John’s philosophic work and his more popular contributions to the Glasgow University Magazine (G.U.M.) is that while his surviving philosophical writings from Scotland do not indicate an acceptance of Realism or Empiricism until the early 1920’s, his writings for the G.U.M. suggest a rejection of Idealism from as early as 1916. However before discussing John’s contributions to the G.U.M., it is necessary to dispel a few inaccuracies and judgements which appear in Brian Kennedy’s work A Passion to Oppose. The easiest to refute is Kennedy’s claim that John enrolled in two degrees at Glasgow University. John Anderson was unusual in doing two honours degrees, not a combined degree, one of them in mathematics and natural philosophy, the other in logic and moral philosophy. After studying first year Greek, Latin and mathematics, he spent three years studying mathematics and natural philosophy, with some laboratory work; and then embarked on another three years of moral philosophy, logic and political economy.1 This statement has puzzled me for many years and so I recently emailed the Archives at Glasgow University for clarification on the issue. The response from the duty archivist was straight-forward. John obtained with only one degree, an M.A. in philosophy, graduating in 1917. She also provided details of his academic transcript. After first year Greek, Latin and Mathematics, he studied four subjects over the next two years: in 2nd year he studied Natural Philosophy (including physical laboratory work) and Mathematics and in 3rd year, Moral Philosophy, Logic, and Natural Philosophy. In his 4th year he did Mathematics (Hons) and Natural Philosophy (higher) and in his final two years he studied Logic, Moral Philosophy and Political Economy. While I cannot claim to know or understand the academic requirements of an M.A. degree in philosophy at Glasgow University at this time, Anderson’s academic transcript appears to be a fairly straight forward record of what we would still recognise today as a standard M.A. degree. After studying compulsory first year subjects, over the next two years he studied Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Logic, and Moral Philosophy. In his fourth year, possibly his honours year, he studied honours level Mathematics and Higher Natural Philosophy. The mathematical and scientific orientation of this year did not appear to be a hindrance to his study in his final two years study (his M.A. course work and thesis?) of Moral Philosophy, Logic and Political Economy. If this is a correct understanding of Anderson’s academic progress, then it amply illustrates Davie’s claim about the comprehensive nature of the ‘democratic intellect’ where philosophy was the unifying subject under which all the special subjects could be studied. Mathematics, Natural Philosophy (possibly akin to something like Theoretical Physics or Hegel’s ‘Philosophy of Nature’) and Political Economy could have been special subjects within philosophy which would explain why his fourth year study of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy was followed by two years of study of Logic and Moral Philosophy. On the basis of this evidence, Kennedy’s claims that Anderson took two degrees and studied three years of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy followed by three years of Moral Philosophy and Logic are simply false. Another claim, where Kennedy is misleading rather than false, occurs in the following statement: In these circumstances it is useful to employ a distinction between the ‘public’ and the ‘private’ Anderson – the ‘public’ student contending for the glittering prizes and the favour of Sir Henry Jones, and the ‘private’ undergraduate, criticising and challenging the orthodoxies of the day. It is a familiar phenomenon, but in someone as intellectually ambitious and as ambivalent about authority as John Anderson, it is very striking. 1 Kennedy op cit p 35 (his emphasis) 3 For John Anderson, the winner of the university’s prestigious silver medal, the Edward Caird and Thomas Logan prizes, the Ferguson scholarship