it the life of which it is but the "inverse" movement. According to this view, then, to conceive is to bring about the existence of that which is called concept. Conceptual discreteness is the derivative of the pure activity of intellect, and is in no sense contained in that upon which intellect operates. The Realistic § 12. According to the realistic version of immediatism, on the other hand, the intellect discovers, but does not make, concepts. This is the view that is on the whole consistently maintained by James. Concepts are not merely functions of the intellect, they constitute a "coördinate realm" of reality. "If we take the world of geometrical relations, the thousandth decimal of sleeps there, tho' no one may even try to compute it." "Philosophy must thus recognize many realms of reality which mutually interpenetrate. The conceptual systems of mathematics, logic, æsthetics, ethics, are such realms, each strung upon some peculiar form of relation, and each differing from perceptual reality in that in no one of them is history or happening displayed. Perceptual reality involves and contains all these ideal systems and vastly more besides." The crux of the matter lies in this last statement. Reality is not other than the conceptual order, but more than the conceptual order. Intellect is an organ, not of fabrication, but of "discernment," a power men have "to single out the most fugitive elements of what passes before them . . . aspect within aspect, quality after quality, relation upon relation." 2 1 When thus construed, pragmatism's account of intellect is consistent with its general naturalistic grounds. Concepts work, because the environment is presented and displayed in them. Since nature has logical and mathematical properties, it is expedient to act as tho' it had; 1 James: Meaning of Truth, pp. 42 (note), 203; Some Problems of Philosophy, pp. 101-102 (italics mine). Cf. also op. cit., p. 56; Pluralistic Universe, pp. 339–340 (note). ร James: Some Problems of Philosophy, pp. 51, 52. while an intellect that was fatally predestined to falsify the environment would be as misleading to action as it would be inherently arbitrary and meaningless. And this realistic version of concepts is entirely consistent with a censure of their blind and uncritical use. Because nature is logical and mathematical, it does not follow that it is merely logical and mathematical. Such an intellectualism is vicious indeed. The abstracting of some characters of reality is beset by a characteristic danger, the danger of ignoring the rest. This follows from the fact that intellect is selective; it in no way implies that intellect is creative. It is also true that in a sense the perceptual world is richer than the conceptual, since the latter is abstracted from it, leaving a residuum behind. James, it is true, goes further than this, and contends, with Bergson, that there are some properties of reality, the dynamic or temporal properties, which cannot be conceived. But this is due, I think, to a misunderstanding. If to conceive is not to alter, but only to distinguish, then conceiving is not contrary to any property; to mention a property with a view to showing its inconceivability is to conceive it. And all properties stand on the same footing with reference to the function of mediation. All may be known mediately; but to know them mediately is only an indirect way of knowing them immediately. This is as true of a mathematical triangle, which is mediately known by means of these words, as of color, life, or anything else. When corrected in the light of these considerations, the realistic anti-intellectualism of James escapes the verbalism and abstractionism of "vicious intellectualism," without that discrediting of analysis and lapse into uncritical intuitionism that dissolution of order into chaos, which marks an even more vicious immediatism. 1 Ibid., pp. 81, 104; cf. above, pp. 231 ff. CHAPTER XI PLURALISM, INDETERMINISM AND RELIGIOUS Pluralism as FAITH § 1. WITH pragmatism as a theory of knowledge — a definition of truth, and a critique of intellectualism, there is allied a more or less clearly defined metaphysics. While this metaphysics is by no means systematic, it is distinct and characteristic enough to afford an interpretation of life, and even a religion. Since pragmatism, like idealism and realism, is primarily a theory of knowledge, and a metaphysics only by implication, we shall do well to follow this logical order in our exposition. As furnishing the basis for a metaphysics and philosophy of religion, pragmatism may best be summed up by the term 'empiricism.' Pragmatism is empirical, in the first place, in that it limits the term 'knowledge' to the particular cases of human knowledge that may be brought under observation. Its theory of knowledge is a description of the manner in which you and I know, in this or that concrete situation. This is both the only knowledge which can profitably be in question, since it is the only knowledge that can be examined; and also the only knowledge on which we can count. Every theory that may be held is some particular body's particular theory. Even a theory concerning infinite or divine knowledge is first of all your theory or mine. And it follows that unless human knowledge is to be credited, we must be sceptics. In other words, if we exclude the sceptical alternative, and say that we mean nothing more by knowledge than the most reliable knowledge available, then we must identify knowledge with human knowledge. Such is knowledge - for better or for worse. No hypothetical knowledge can be more infallible or more certain than the processes of that human mind which defines, proves, and believes it. It follows that it is possible to know, as fully as it is possible to know at all, a limited portion of reality. If one were to assert that it is impossible fully to know anything without knowing everything - then that assertion itself would be discredited. It is itself a case of partial knowledge and is entitled to no special privileges. Now if it is possible to know parts of reality without knowing all, it follows that such parts of reality are selfsufficient. If knowledge can be additive, if things can be known one at a time, then the things known must possess their natures independently. Thus one can know the laws of number, without knowing the date of Napoleon's birth. The latter knowledge, when obtained, is simply to be added to the former without modifying it. But this is equivalent to saying that Napoleon's birth is not a part of the nature of number. It is not asserted that one is not related to the other, but only that it is not germane, does not enter into its definition. And this, when generalized, is what is meant by pluralism. According to the opposite, or monistic, view, the all-relationship, the relation of each to all, is definitive; according to pluralism it is accidental. According to monism the universal interrelationship determines the essential nature of every item of being; according to pluralism certain limited relations sufficiently determine the nature of each thing, the residual relations being superfluous and unnecessary. According to monism the totality is more unified than the parts; according to pluralism the parts severally are more unified than the totality.1 Pragmatism thus credits finite knowledge, and asserts that knowledge grows from part to whole. Knowledge is cumulative; omniscience would be a sum of knowledge, For pragmatist definitions of pluralism, see James: Pragmatism, Lect. IV. On the "monistic theory of truth," cf. below, p. 323. a knowledge of a and b, in which the knowledge of a and b severally is prior to the knowledge of them together. And pragmatism infers that a universe in which this is possible is a universe in which there is at least some irrelevance or casual conjunction. § 2. But the empirical method contributes more direct evidence for pluralism in that such casual conjunctions are actually perceived. James, in particular, External Rela- has emphasized the existence of 'external' relations.1 Pluralism and tions Rationalism singles out and emphasizes the relations of logical implication and organic unity. Such relations are not to be denied; and it is in the interest of knowledge to discover them wherever they can be found. Indeed, the discovery of such relations may even be said to be the principal motive of thought. But a thorough-going empiricism will admit that such relations are never found except in the company of other relations. "Everything you can think of," says James, "however vast or inclusive, has on the pluralistic view a genuinely 'external' environment of some sort or amount. Things are 'with' one another in many ways, but nothing includes everything, or dominates over everything. The word 'and' trails along after every sentence."2 In other words, internal definitive relationships are discriminated from casual relationships. Science distinguishes in connection with any subject of inquiry those things which are necessarily or functionally related, and which must therefore enter into the explanation, from those things which are there, and in some sense related, but which are negligible. Every definition, every determinate system, is obtained by exclusion as well as inclusion. The skilful scientific mind is the mind that readily fastens upon that which is germane, to the exclusion of that which is irrelevant. And empiricism is simply the willingness to accept facts, whether they 1 Cf., e.g., Pluralistic Universe, pp. 321-326, 358–361. Cf. below, p. 372. 'Op. cit., p. 321. |