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FREGE
FREGE
(1848 1925)
LOGICISM
Born in Wismar, where his father was Headmaster of a girls' school, Gottlob Frege was educated at the Universities of Jena and
Gttingen, studying mathematics, natural sciences, and philosophy. After gaining his doctorate at Gttingen in 1873 he returned to Jena
as a Privatdozent in mathematics and was appointed 'ausserordentlicher' professor in 1879 and 'full' professor in 1896. He was largely
neglected by the academic world (apart from Russell and Wittgenstein on both of whom he was a major influence); and the significance
of his pioneering work was not fully appreciated until the nineteen fifties.
PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS
[1] What are the foundations of mathematics? What are numbers? These are the questions that initially interested Frege. [See The
Foundations of Arithmetic.] He rejected 'psychologistic' and empiricist accounts of numbers as abstractions from our perceptions of
groups of objects, and the so-called 'formalist' and 'conventionalist' views that they are just arbitrary signs or marks on a page, perhaps
governed by rules of use, as in a game. And he disagreed with the claim that arithmetical truths are synthetic a pnon judgments (although
he considered that geometrical truths were) [a]. Each of the above three theories fails in one of these respects. Arithmetic, Frege argued,
must be in some sense objective and certain, and must of course be applicable to the world. This requires that the signs of arithmetic
must have some 'reference' just as we cannot talk about the application of, say, the pieces in a game of chess without having already
assigned some 'representative' function to them and the moves that may be made with them. His solution was to regard numbers as
applicable to concepts, that is, "objects of reason", which are subject to a criterion of identity [b]. This can be understood by means of
an example. The statement 'Jupiter's moons are four' should be interpreted as 'The number of Jupiter's moons is four'; and in this sentence
'the number of Jupiter's moons' and 'four' refer to identical objects. How then is number defined? Suppose we have two concepts A and
B, and that the objects covered by one concept correspond one-to-one to the things covered by the other. The number (as object)
belonging to A is then 'equinumerous', that is, the same as the number belonging to B. And 'having the same number' is to say that the
two concepts A and B have the same extension, that is, covers the same class of objects. The number 0, Frege adds, is the number which
belongs to the concept 'not identical with itself'. In this way he was led to the view that the definitions and laws of arithmetic could be
derived solely from the laws of logic. The truths of arithmetic are thus 'analytic' in so far as anayticity is defined by Frege as truths of
logic, or as truths which can be reduced to such truths through the use of definitions in logical terms. Synthetic truths, by contrast, are
not truths of logic [c].
CRITICAL SUMMARY
The impact of Frege on twentieth century philosophy was as great if less immediate as Descartes' philosophy was on the
seventeenth. Having rejected the psychologism of Mill and (probably) early Husserl he sought to ground mathematics in logic (albeit
unsuccessfully as it later turned out). But more importantly he revolutionized modern logic, offering a new account of predication and
quantification. He has also been a major influence on the philosophy of language. Central in his writings are his distinction between
sense and reference and his treatment of problems arising out of identity and predication. These and other issues have, however,
engendered a great deal of controversial discussion in recent years. Do we need sense as well as reference? Is meaning to be determined
by truth conditions? Does this commit us to some form of realism? Some philosophers have been critical of Frege's account of
predication. And some have tended to dismiss his emphasis on logical structures supposedly underlying informal language and have
argued in favour of the adequacy of the latter, linking it with assertion (as use of sentences) rather than on Frege's key concept of truth.
These matters continue to be much debated.
ROYCE
(1855 1916)
ABSOLUTE IDEALISM
Born in Grass Valley, California, Josiah Royce turned to philosophy after graduating in engineering from the University of California in
1875. He studied German philosophy at Leipzig and Gttingen and then carried out research under James and Peirce at Johns Hopkins,
gaining his Ph.D in 1878. After teaching English literature at the University of California from 1878-82 he became lecturer and then
professor of philosophy at Harvard (1892), finally occupying the Alford Chair in 1914. He was also Gifford lecturer at Aberdeen
(1900/01).
KNOWLEDGE/ METAPHYSICS
[1] Royce's absolute idealism can be understood as arising from his response to scepticism and error [see 'Kant's Relation to Modern
Philosophic Progress'; also 'The Possibility of Error' (in The Religious Aspect of Philosophy)]. We suppose there to be a real external
world of facts beyond our ideas or phenomena. But we recognise a 'gap' between this belief and the world; we cannot be sure the
belief is correct. However, we are all aware of error when our thought fails to conform to its intended object. In his early work he
argued against the view that immediate and present data of sense are structured by 'subjective' forms or categories. The transformation of
sensory data into objective knowledge requires transcendent principles validated ultimately by an 'Absolute knower' in the framework
of which alone our otherwise isolated actual and possible judgements can be situated, error distinguished from the true, and a totality of
experience comprising past, present, and future be constructed. We also recognise that different individuals may hold different moral
values and ideals. The Absolute must therefore be similarly invoked if moral relativism is to be overcome and the presence of evil and
suffering in the world made explicable [a].
These themes were developed in his philosophy of Being [see The World and the Individual especially 'The One, the Many and the
Infinite'], which is concerned to address the question what the world must be like if we are to know it. As a first step Royce distinguished
between two views of ideas. (1) Ideas as representations or cognitions are said to have external meanings. (2) But he also thinks of ideas
as internal in the sense that they are to be understood as partially expressing and fulfilling 'purposes' or 'will' [b]. He regards the internal
meanings of an idea as primary, in that our intentions and purposes determine what is to count as external or even constitute externality.
Internally ideas are incomplete. However, in so far as in their external meaning they point beyond themselves they effect the
development of the internal 'purpose' the striving of the idea to situate itself in the wider context culminating in the Absolute in
which perfect fulfilment would be realized. Thus each idea, while an 'individual', yet already contains implicitly the totality. From a
different standpoint we must think of truth and falsity only in terms of a relation (of coherence) to this total system of thought
culminating in the Absolute [c]. As he says, "All reality must be present to the unity of the Infinite Thought" [The Religious Aspect of
Philosophy, p. 433].
In support of his approach to Being Royce considers in turn what he considers to be the inadequacies of 'realism', 'mysticism', and
'critical rationalism' [d]. He understands realism as a dualist philosophy which is pluralistic but committed to the disconnection of the
knower from the known (which is external), a view he thinks which cannot account for knowledge. According to mysticism there is only
the One; all ideas and the knowing subject must therefore be regarded as illusory. Indeed, given this position, ideas and talk about the
One itself must be similarly illusory. As for critical rationalism (he has in mind both Kant and Mill), Royce says this defines 'possible
experience' in terms of what can be validated or verified (hypothetically, as it were) through reference to such universal 'conditions' or
'forms' as causal sequence, spatiality, temporality, and so on. However, he argues that this cannot define 'determinate individuality', for
which we need actual experience.
How then is plurality reconciled with unity? In contrast to the realist's notion of individuality, Royce understands the individual as that
which is fulfilling uniquely its ideas in the wider totality working out its purpose, we might say. Royce refers to the individual's "life
of experience" as pointing to the "absolute experience". But individuals are not isolated beings; we can know ourselves only in relation
to others. Royce here introduces his central concept of inter-subjectivity. We are aware of others initially in a primitive way. As we
acquire more experience we come to recognise and know others as utilizing the same external objects as we do in order to fulfil their
purposes, and we see them as expressions of the same Absolute Purpose [e]. The Absolute is the real unity of one and many, a self-
representative 'system', manifested as an actual recursive infinite series of the temporal events constituting the world (and known to the
Divine consciousness) [f], through which its will or purpose (the 'form' of the system) is revealed (as, for example, a complete map of a
country would have to include itself as a feature).
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Royce is important as the major representative of nineteenth century idealism in America. He postulates the Absolute, or Divinity as the
solution to the epistemological problems associated with scepticism and error and the ethical problem of moral relativism. He sees the
Absolute as that in which or though which the ideas and purposes of finite individuals are fulfilled. But notwithstanding the
impressiveness and range of his thought his system is open to serious difficulties.
(1) He holds the view that ideas correspond to intended external objects, yet he seems to subscribe to a coherence theory of truth when
considered from the standpoint of the Absolute or totality. These positions are not easily reconcilable. Some critics would also question
his account of the 'gap' between our ideas and beliefs in externality, and his subordination of 'external meanings' of ideas to their 'internal
meanings'.
(2) As for the Absolute, it is certainly debatable whether (a) Royce's arguments for it as the solution to error are valid, and (b) his ethics
is satisfactorily grounded in such a questionable metaphysics. Moreover (c), there is an unresolved tension between the Absolute and
finite individuality. Do individual personalities if they can be supposed to survive death remain distinct from the Absolute? Is the
Absolute itself Personality? Can evil be real in a universe considered to be perfect from the standpoint of God? Finally (d), does Royce's
Absolute Idealism successfully avoid both monism and dualism?
HUSSERL
(1859 1938)
PHENOMENOLOGY
Edmund Husserl was born into a Jewish family in Prosnitz, Moravia. He was educated at the Gymnasium in Olmitz and then studied
physics, mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy at the Universities of Leipzig, Berlin, and Vienna. After gaining his doctorate in 1882
he studied further in Vienna under Brentano, subsequently becoming a Privatdozent at Halle. From 1906-16 he
was ausserordentlicherprofessor at Gttingen, where he established the Phenomenological movement (though his relationships with his
colleagues were often strained). He moved to Freiburg as full professor in 1916 and remained there until his death, having retired from
teaching in 1928.
THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
[7] [See especially Logical Investigations II, vi; Ideas I, iv.] In what ways are things known? Husserl made the following distinctions.
(1) Within the realm of Fact we know the material things and events belonging to the realm of Nature, including ourselves and other
people (as 'moments' of physical body, psyche or soul) by means of sensory intuition and the constituting consciousness. The objects,
Husserl says, are prescribed by the sense or meaning content of intentional experience, that is through noemata. The notion of a thing 'in
itself' is therefore superfluous [Ideas I, 47] [a]. Our knowledge of others as living bodies, their activities and experiences, is gained
through an understanding of their rational and emotional motivations; and this requires empathy. This is fundamental to the human
sciences [b]. He also says that we can have original intuitions of values in the world which then inform our motivations [c]. The pure or
transcendental ego, however, as instantiation of the essence Pure Ego, is not directly intuitable, but qua subject of consciousness is
reached through transcendental reflection [d].
(2) All essences instantiated in the three realms of fact, life-world and consciousness are known through eidetic intuition and
eidetic variation [e].
(3) Meanings or senses (the actual noematic contents of experiences) and also acts of consciousness are known through the bracketing
process and then phenomenological reduction [f].
It would therefore seem to follow that knowledge of the empirical self or ego as such and within the realm of fact (the 'pure I' moments)
can be known only as a complex series of the noemata themselves and thus through phenomenological reflection. Husserl also says
that we as egos can be aware of our experiencing (as contrasted with our awareness of the intentional contents the noemata of
experience): he calls this 'apperception' [g]. (This is not to be confused with perception which is directed towards the intentional object
as prescribed by the sense or meaning aspect of the noemata.)
How then does intuition constitute knowledge? Knowing is itself a mental act which is realized in the relation between acts of thought
and what he terms 'fulfilling intuitions' [Investigations II, vi]. The key term 'fulfilment' needs to be clarified. Suppose I am thinking
about my pen (an intentional act of thinking). If I actually come to perceive the pen, here in front of me on the table, my thought is said
to be fulfilled through this empirical or perceptual intuition. Knowledge is thus a mental state realized in our awareness of a relation
between the act of thought and its fulfilling empirical intuition, a recognition of the identity of the object of thought and the object of
perception [h].
Husserl allows degrees of knowing, three kinds of evidence or "originally giving" [Cartesian Meditations, 6] [i].
(1) Certainty. In everyday experience we perceive feel surfaces, see trees, hear birds (though generally perception is more usually
used to refer specifically to vision). In general we do not doubt either that we are having this experience or that. It is indeed the tree we
are seeing, the bird we are hearing. Such experiences possess the characteristic of certainty. This is not to say that mistakes are not
possible.
(2) Apodicticity. Apodictic evidence is stronger than certain evidence and is applicable to what is absolutely indubitable in a way that
our perception of the tree is not. For his criterion Husserl seems to be thinking here of something like Descartes' claim to have certain
("clear and distinct") knowledge of himself as a consciousness of thinking substance though he does not subscribe to Cartesian
metaphysics. (Earlier [see Logical Investigns I, 2nd edn, note to 6], however, he would seem to have regarded the cogito as only
adequately self-evident.)
(3) Evidence is said to be 'adequate'. This seems to relate to the notion of fulfilment introduced in the Investigations [see sec. 7h ]. When
we look at the tree we see particular aspects of it. However, perceptually the experience is open to further possibilities ('horizons',
'variations'): there is a back to the tree whose colour and shape we do not see at the moment but could do so if we moved round it. If we
were in a position to perceive the totality of the possibilities, our intendings and meanings would be completely fulfilled and our
knowledge would be said to be adequate. (Clearly this term does not have the usual sense of sufficiency.) Now if we apply these grades
of evidence to each of the modes of intuition we find that not all standards are met. Perception, as just indicated, is not adequate; neither
is it apodictic; but it is (usually) certain. Phenomenological reflection, however, in general satisfies all three criteria (though Husserl is
not always consistent here, particularly in his analysis of our acts of consciousness in relation to the life-world).
[8] In Husserl's last writings [The Crisis in European Sciences; implicit also in Ideas II] it is the 'pre-given' living-world and our
commonsense awareness of the external world of intersubjectivity that he takes as his starting-point; and it is from this, through
phenomenological reduction, that philosophy is established as a rigorous science, the natural sciences can be constructed as an
abstraction, and reconciliation between the natural and human sciences achieved [a].
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Although Husserl's philosophy was constantly undergoing change and development, there are a number of key features which are
generally to be found throughout his writings: (1) his use of Brentano's modification of the medieval concepts of intentionality and
'intended' (as against 'material') objects'; (2) his method of 'bracketing' and transcendental-phenomenological reduction; and (3) the
'intuition' of essences. (His last period also saw the introduction of the influential concepts of the 'life-world' and coherence though
these too have been shown to have originated in in much earlier writings.) Nevertheless, his philosophy as a whole is inherently
ambiguous; and much recent scholarship has centred on two interconnected issues: whether he should be regarded as a commonsense
realist or as a transcendental idealist, and whether his epistemology should be understood in 'foundationalist' terms.
The relationship of his philosophy to Descartes is central in this dispute. Arguably a merit of Husserl's account of a transcendental ego as
neither a thinking substance in which thoughts inhere nor the stream of thoughts themselves is that it avoids the problems raised by
Descartes' cogito. And some commentators have argued that he goes beyond Descartes with his concept of intentionality as a nexus of
noesis (act) and noema (content) (which leads to knowledge of the intentional object), his notion of eidetic reduction, and the intuition of
ideal essences. It follows that he is a transcendental idealist in that (a) the physical world is constituted by the mind on a foundation of
immanence (sensations as the phenomenal content of intentionally directed mental acts); (b) the constituting consciousness is the pure
transcendental ego; (c) the empirical, psychological ego is the consciousness which is constituted by the transcendental ego and is part of
the constituted world as a dependent moment of human nature. Thus, although his conception of consciousness and his foundationalist
programme differ in some respects from Descartes', he remained a Cartesian. And certainly Husserl himself, at least in his earlier work,
accepted the description of his philosophy as transcendental idealism, though he denied it was a subjective idealism in the way he
supposed Berkeley's to be.
As against this view, some other scholars have claimed that Husserl's philosophy should not be interpreted in Cartesian terms at all. It
has been suggested that in the admittedly later Cartesian Meditations but implicit in earlier writings he is concerned primarily with
the working out of a phenomenology of one's experience of oneself and the natural world. It is mistaken to suppose that he raises
apodictic certainty to the level of an ideal requirement. Husserl is not engaged in such a quest. He recognises degrees of evidence and
knowledge, and allows that intuitions are revisable revisability being also a feature of his concept of 'horizon'. On this interpretation,
then, we can say Husserl was not seeking a foundation for knowledge in the phenomenal content of mental acts still less in an
absolute certainty such as was claimed by Descartes for his cogito (which, as Husserl correctly pointed out, did not meet Descartes' own
apodictic requirements). It can been argued further that Husserl's notion of foundation was in any case ontological rather than
epistemological, though there is (in Investigations VI) interaction between the two aspects in that acts of eidetic intuition are founded on
lower-level acts involving sensory content. (They refer to what is called by some philosophers in the analytic tradition as sense-data or
sensibilia.) Finally, one must have regard to the later shift towards an emphasis on the 'pre-given' life world and our commonsense
awareness of the external world of intersubjectivity that Husserl takes as his starting-point. Perhaps then Husserl may be regarded
correctly as a foundationalist in his theory of knowledge but that the nature of the 'foundations' changed from something approximating
to what philosophers working in the earlier 'analytic' tradition termed sense-data or sensibilia to the something more like Wittgenstein's
'scaffolding' of ordinary discourse and experience. However, the tension between the two interpretations remains unresolved.
The precise status of Husserl's phenomenological statements (that is, the various 'conditions') has also been frequently questioned. (We
may compare this with the similar problem encountered by the logical positivists' verification principle.) They are supposedly non-
empirical and yet necessarily true a priori. It has been said that they cannot be a priori, because the conditions laid down for phenomena
and intentional acts may not be universal. In a different culture it may not be possible within the corresponding limits and conditions to
distinguish true from false statements. An alternative view, however, is that they may be taken to be a priori in so far as they are
necessary as preconditions for the truth and falsity of statements about phenomena. What Husserl says in his Ideas for a Pure
Phenomenology would seem to support such an interpretation (approximately Kantian).
Notwithstanding these conflicting views perhaps indeed because of them Husserl remains as one of the most significant thinkers of
the twentieth century. As the originator of phenomenology he was a major influence on a large number of European philosophers
including Heidegger, Scheler, Ortega y Gasset, Jaspers, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Gadamer, and Ricoeur.
BERGSON
(1859 1941)
EVOLUTIONARY DUALISM
Henri Bergson was born in Paris, the son of a musician. Although his family was Jewish he converted to Roman Catholicism in later life.
He was educated at the Lyce Condorcet and at the cole Normale Suprieure, his studies including both science and the classics. After
graduating in 1881 he taught for a number of years in various lyces. In 1897 he was appointed a professor at the cole Normale and
then at the Collge de France, where he remained until 1924. After the First World War he worked actively for the League of Nations. In
1914 he was elected to the French Academy and in 1927 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.
METAPHYSICS/ KNOWLEDGE
[1] [See Creative Evolution and Introduction to Metaphysics.] Bergson's philosophy starts from a consideration of a contrast between
'positivist' science, which deals with the material world, and metaphysics, whose concern is with 'spirit'. He is critical of science in so far
as it is analytical and seeks to reduce physical objects to simpler parts such as atoms. He therefore regards it as 'distorting' our experience
of the 'real'. He likewise criticizes philosophical systems for their abstractionist tendencies and remoteness from the actual world in
which we live. Metaphysics, or 'pure' philosophy, on the other hand, deals with direct and undistorted awareness of reality [a]. The
contrast between the two approaches is seen particularly in his discussion of time. In our inner, spiritual experience we grasp real time as
'pure duration'. The scientist, however, deals with mathematical time, treats it 'spatially', breaks it up into parts. This again is brought
about by the intellect's distortion of the world. Bergson thinks of pure duration as an expression of the inner self, whereas our experience
of time as fragmented is a characteristic of our 'superficial' self [b]. Nevertheless, he does not seek to reject science altogether. Science,
he says, makes use of intelligence, while metaphysics is based onintuition. And we need both, because intelligence provides us with the
means to conceptualize our intuitions in language, while science enables us to control our world and to cope with the demands of
ordinary life[c]. How then can the analytical and fragmenting nature of both scientific enquiry and the language we use to articulate our
experience of the material world be reconciled with a metaphysic which purports to be grounded in a direct awareness of a continuous
and enduring yet qualitatively changing reality? This problem is encountered in a number of contexts in Bergson's philosophy the
conflict between mind and body, the nature of the self, freedom and determinism, and in his ethics and account of religion.
[2] With respect to the mind-body problem [see Matter and Memory], he rejects both epiphenomenalism (the theory that mind is a kind
of 'extra' produced by the brain but which plays no causal role in our experience or behaviour) and identity theories [a] (which regard
mental and physical processes as but different ways of talking about the same 'thing'). Central to his own essentially dualistic view is the
concept of memory. He distinguishes two kinds. (1) 'Mechanistic' memory: this is a "closed system of automatic movements which
succeed one another in the same order and occupy the same time". He understands it as a kind of bodily habit or disposition, which does
not involve any mental images or representations. It is associated with the view of time as discrete, fragmented, successive . (2) 'Pure'
memory, on the other hand, does consist of representations, and records and stores the events of our daily lives. It is spiritual and belongs
to a part of the mind which exists below consciousness. And it belongs to pure duration [b]. The brain's function, Bergson says, is to
monitor and bring out of store into full representatational consciousness only those recollections which can be relevant to and can be
used in action. Action of course also calls on our habits for its implementation. But pure memory is not reducible to mechanistic
memory. Neither is the totality of content of the 'infra-conscious' brought to consciousness at a given moment. Bergson thus supposes his
theory to have avoided both materialist epiphenomenalism and identity or psycho-physical parallelism.
[3] It is in terms of the concept of action that Bergson offers an account of perception [Matter and Memory]. Again he makes a
distinction this time between 'pure' perception and actual or 'concrete' perception. Pure perception is to be understood solely in terms
of 'virtual action', that is, a preparedness of the brain states (as 'subject') for action in relation to external objects. By concrete perception
he means a synthesis of pure perception (from the side of matter) and pure memory (from the side of spirit). Body and soul are thus
brought together in action [a]. What then of the problem of freedom? [See Time and Free Will.] Is not the body as explained in scientific
terms subject to causal determinism? Bergson refers again to his distinction between self as pure duration and the 'superficial' self. To the
extent we can "get back into pure duration", "gain possession of ourself', we act freely and creatively. But we remain determined in so far
as we are acted on, for example, mechanically or socially [b].
[4] In his main work, Creative Evolution, Bergson presents his own account of evolution and attempts to brings all these various ideas
into harmony with it. He rejects the supposedly mechanistic theory of Darwin and his emphasis on natural selection and 'fitness' as the
determining factor in the survival of species, and argues in favour of a vital force (lan vital). We are aware of this, he says, in our inner
lives, in that we experience ourselves as agents with the capacity to organize, control, and overcome the 'resistance' of 'inert' matter. This
vital force is found throughout life in all its manifestations [a], and gives rise to three levels or tendencies: plant life, instinctive life, and
intelligent, rational life. These categories are not mutually exclusive but are found together in varying degrees in all life forms. But in
plants insensibility and immobility are primary features; consciousness predominates in animals the highest species exhibiting
intelligence as well as instinct. Instinct is a faculty for using and constructing the organism itself; while intelligence enables an organism
to make use of 'artificial instruments', that is, tools. Considered from the historical point of view, man is thus homo faber rather
than homo sapiens.
[5] Bergson goes on to argue that we can extrapolate from the intuition we have of ourselves as free creative agents to a view of the
universe as a whole as a creative process of 'perpetual becoming', which is continuously 'making' and 'unmaking' itself [a], both leaping
forward through the emergence of new species and falling back relatively in the perpetuation of the same species. On balance, however,
the process is progressive. Now there would seem to be a problem here in that, given his account of intellect or intelligence as primarily
geared to action, it is difficult to see how Bergson can be said to know in an undistorted way the reality of the universe as an evolutionary
process. To deal with this he says that in the course of evolution instinct becomes conscious of itself, capable of reflection on its object.;
and this in turn splits into intelligence and intuition [b]. These two facets of the human organism then work together: intuition provides
the content for intelligence-in-action, while this latter is monitored or checked by intuition, and is thereby prevented from falling into
abstraction and producing a distorted and fragmented picture of the real world.
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
[6] [See Creative Evolution and Two Sources of Morality and Religion.] Corresponding to his 'dualism' between intuition and
intellect, Bergson distinguishes two types of religion. (1) Static religion originates with primitive man. It is grounded in conventionally
accepted myths and appeals to a divine being as the source of authority, who lays down what is permissible and punishes transgressors.
Dynamic religion, on the other hand, is mystical. In actual practice human religion involves both static and dynamic aspects as
interpenetrating each other. Bergson thinks of them as receptive of and directed towards the creative power of the universe as expressed
through the progressive evolutionary process. This creative power or vital force Bergson thinks of as 'supra-consciousness', perhaps even
to be identified with God. Later, however, he tended to think of it in terms of divine love rather than the divinity Himself [a].
ETHICS
[7] [See Creative Evolution, 2nd edn, and Two Sources.] Static and dynamic religion are seen by Bergson to be respectively 'infra-
intellectual/rational' and 'supra-intellectual'. These descriptions are equally applicable to what he calls 'closed' (or static) and 'open'
(dynamic) morality, both of which offer alternative explanations for our motivation to act morally. Bergson rejects practical reason or the
'categorical imperative' as the source of man's sense of obligation. He says that in the static society it originates from the influence or
'pressure' exercised on individuals by society. In general we conform to the norms of the closed society naturally and unreflectingly, in
so far as we have a 'social self'. We feel the sense of obligation when we experience society as offering us 'resistance'. Open morality
concerns the direct relation of human beings to each other or to an 'ideal' society not yet attained, and is grounded in universal love
the consequence of the mystical relationship to God. The drive or motivation for action therefore lies not in social obligation but in the
emotional vital force of individual will [a]. As in his account of religion, Bergson recognises that both kinds of morality may be present
simultaneously in a particular society. And while the static and dynamic tendencies are in a sense in opposition, they are also necessary
to each other. Through the mediation of reason closed morality is made more universal and open. At the same time the ideals of open
morality are restrained or controlled the aim being the realization of a truly human society in which social obligation is transformed
through man's participation in the divine life. In either type of society, however, obligation presupposes man's freedom [b].
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Bergson's philosophy is of interest for a number of reasons. (1) He contrasts positivist mechanistic and 'distorting' science with a spiritual
or intuitive metaphysics which relates to the 'inner self' and is based on a pure 'undistorted' awareness of the real; and he exhibits this
contrast in his distinction between time as respectively (a) 'spatially fragmented' and (b) pure duration, a flow of consciousness. (2) He
blends his views in general with an account of the universe as a (non-Darwinian) evolutionary process. (3) He emphasizes action as a
manifestation of 'vital force', by reference to which he attempts to provide a treatment of Cartesian dualism which avoids materialist and
identity theories. This modified dualism runs through his philosophy as a whole, exhibited in such polarities as vital-static, intuition-
intelligence, creative/mystical-mechanistic, free-determined.
From the critical point of view the obvious question is whether the opposing elements in each polarity are genuinely harmonizable with
each other. Moreover, it can be objected that it is not clear how, if at all, the dualisms are to be integrated within the vital evolutionary
process. The test for Bergson is not scientific. So what is the basis of the metaphysical process? How does it relate to his concept of a
God? Many commentators have objected that Bergson does not really provide adequate analysis or argument. He has a tendency to be
carried away by fancy; his language is often unclear and poetic. The concept of the lan vital is itself an all-embracing one, but arguably
it is illegitimate to extend it to different spheres.
DEWEY
(1859 1952)
PRAGMATISM
John Dewey was born in Burlington, Vermont, where his father was in the grocery business. He was at school there before entering the
University of Vermont. After three years teaching in high school he became a graduate student of philosophy at Johns Hopkins
University, gaining his doctorate in 1884. He subsequently taught at the University of Michigan, and in 1894 was appointed professor of
philosophy and chairman of the department of philosophy, psychology, and pedagogy at Chicago. In 1904 he moved to Columbia
University. He was the author of a large number of books and articles on a wide range of subjects which gained him an international
reputation.
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
[5] [Human Nature and Conduct.] In Dewey's ethics the primary concern is the all-round growth of the human person [a]. This can be
achieved only in a social environment which can provide opportunities and means for individuals to make use of them [a]. Politics
must therefore be directed to monitor and if needs be criticize institutions to enable them to be reconstructed and thereby maximize the
opportunities they provide. As in his theory of knowledge, Dewey rejects abstractions, for example, the State as an ideal eternal model.
The only test of a particular state's efficacy lies in the success it has in facilitating the growth of all its members. But he does regard
democracy as preferable, in so far as it is founded on faith in human intelligence and capacities and on the power of cooperation and
collective experience [b]. Democracy is a framework for free enquiry and experimental methods rather than a set of precepts or rules.
Such views strongly informed Dewey's influential views on education.
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
[6] [See especially A Common Faith.] Dewey did not subscribe to any belief in a supernatural God. But while rejecting religion as a
set of creeds, institutions, and practices he talks of an attitude towards certain kinds of experience as 'religious' [a]. By this he does
not mean anything like a feeling of love or union with a transcendent being. Rather it is a description of attitudes we may have to any
kind of experience (be it aesthetic, moral, or scientific, or feelings for other people), which can give individuals faith, and can direct
them towards something 'beyond' with a view to their achieving harmony with the totality of Nature or the Universe. We can call this
God if we wish: but for Dewey the term can mean no more than "the active relation between ideal and actual".
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Dewey was a major thinker whose influence has been felt far beyond the confines of America and especially in the field of education, his
philosophy being particularly relevant to everyday issues. His pragmatism is notable not only for its combination of the coherence and
correspondence features (stressed by James) but also for his inclusion of the concept of warranted assertability in his theory of
knowledge and truth. It has been argued that with regard to the latter Dewey's account is unsatisfactory, because the notion of a 'warrant'
depends on that of verification or confirmation (associated with the coherence criterion); and that this is a quite different concept from
truth. Other difficulties concern what have been perceived as tensions in his system. For example, while his philosophy is generally
empiricist, there is an implicit metaphysical world-view (holism or organicism formed in his early 'Hegelian' period). 'Constructionist'
tendencies have also been identified which, it is said, are inconsistent with his commitment to realism. Likewise, Dewey affirms the need
for basic logical principles yet at the same time stresses the need to overcome all contradictions and allows for the revisability of
everything. In his ethics the (objective) normative aspect does not sit too well with his subjectivism implicit in his choice of such
vague and ambiguous notions as growth and satisfaction as the empirical criteria of moral judgement.
WHITEHEAD
(1861 1947)
'PROCESS' PHILOSOPHY
Alfred North Whitehead was born in Ramsgate, Kent, a vicar's son. He was educated at Sherborne School and Trinity College,
Cambridge, where he studied mathematics and was elected Fellow and lecturer in 1884. He collaborated with his pupil Bertrand Russell
on their monumental Principia Mathematica (1900-11). From then on he taught at University College, London, and in 1914 he was
appointed professor of applied mathematics at Imperial College. He moved to America in 1924 to take up a chair in philosophy at
Harvard. He was elected Fellow of the British Academy in 1931, and in 1945 the Order of Merit was conferred on him. His Gifford
Lectures, delivered at Edinburgh in 1927/28 were published as Process and Reality his magnum opus.
[Reference numbers for Process and Reality are those of the original standard pagination and which are reproduced in the Free Press
corrected edition of 1978.]
KNOWLEDGE
[3] [Process and Reality, esp. Pt II, chs V-VII.] Whitehead's theory of perception arises from his rejection of the traditional dualism
between subjective secondary qualities (appearances) and objective primary qualities (reality). Whitehead called this an example of "the
bifurcation of nature". For there to be a 'sense object' (and hence a perceptual object) there must be (a) a 'situation', (b) 'percipient
events', and (c) 'conditioning events'. The percipient event is 'related' to the situation to which it refers through the conditioning events.
This account is developed in later writings in the following way. We do not start from the empiricist's sense-data or impressions but from
what Whitehead calls 'prehending' entities [ibid. Pt III] which are constantly interacting with the environment, and which we are aware
of initially through 'receptive' sensations associated with the body as a whole (through the muscles, our position, etc.) rather than just
through our limited sense organs such as sight and touch. He calls this perception "in the mode of causal efficacy". Sensations, including
emotional experiences are subsequently brought to full consciousness and projected back into the "contemporary spatial region" of the
world" as 'perceptive' sensations: these constitute a later and 'higher' perception at the conscious level "in the mode of presentational
immediacy". (He calls the interplay between them 'symbolic reference'.) Both primary and secondary qualities are thus referred back to a
common actual occasion as prehending entity [a]. And such sensations may of course not be veridical, because there is a time lag
between the two modal stages. [See Pt II, ch. IV, secs VI and VII; ch. VIII, secs I and II.]
METAPHYSICS
[4] [gen 4] Many of Whitehead's central ideas on science and perception are utilized in his metaphysics. Indeed these ideas are already
themselves implicitly metaphysical, metaphysics or 'speculative philosophy' being "the endeavour to frame a coherent, logical necessary
system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted" [Process and Reality, Pt I, ch. II] [a]. (His
primary aim in this book was in fact to clarify the meaning of the many categories he postulated in his general 'categorial scheme',
namely, the category of the 'Ultimate'; eight categories of Existence, such as Actual Entities or Occasions, Prehensions, Nexs, Eternal
Objects; twenty-seven of Explanation, and nine of Obligations [b]. These are 'real' categories which relate to concrete experience.)
The 'forms' or 'eternal objects' are what he calls 'pure potentials', realizable as constituents of events or actual entities at different
levels (sense objects, perceptual objects, and so on). Events 'become' and 'perish' over minimal time spans or 'epochs', but because of the
'conformity' to them of successive entities enduring objects are sustainable as permanent features of Nature. Whithead says [Process and
Reality, 63-4] that temporal things arise by their participation in the eternal things, the two sets being mediated by a 'final entity' which
combines the actuality of what is temporal with the timelessness of what is potential. He calls this the divine element in the world, by
which the general Aristotelian principle that, apart from things that are actual, there is nothing 'in fact or in efficacy'. Everything is
positively somewhere in actuality, and in potency everywhere [c].
In his later writings [for example, Process and Reality and Modes of Thought ] events and objects are described as "concrescences of
prehensions" [d] unities which as a consequence of their own "processes of becoming" synthesize their relations to other such unities.
The progressive sequences of overlapping events form groups of 'actual entities' or 'occasions' (Whitehead calls them 'societies' or
'nexs'), other in a hierarchical sequence. Moreover, all entities even down to those at the molecular level are concrescences of
prehensions, manifestations of energy, concrescence being effected by the process of 'feeling' [e]. He uses this term to mean "the basic
generic operation of passing from the objectivity of the data to the subjectivity of the actual entity in question" [Process and Reality, 66]
subjectivity being sentient experience. Integration of feeling proceeds to a final unity of feeling, or 'satisfaction', which is the
culmination of a concrescence into a matter of fact all 'indetermination' of an actual entity having been eliminated, that is, its
possibilities have been realized. And in so far as we can 'feel' in ourselves this activity in others (implicit in the overlapping of events)
we have achieved what he calls 'objectification' or 're-enactment'. Underlying Whitehead's notion of overlapping is a fundamental
interrelatedness of occasions. Relations between them are themselves 'eternal objects' which, he says, is shown in "the complex of
mutual prehensions by virtue of which those occasions constitute a nexus". And every proposition presupposes a general nexus with an
indicative relational system. But for Whitehead relations are both internal and external [f]. His view seems to be, in effect, that if the
'solidarity' of the multitude of actual entities of physical universe is to admit of description, relations must be internal. At the same time,
if we are to think of these actualities as individually discrete, relations must be considered to have an external aspect as bonds
between the divided things. [Process 471-2]
This account leads on to the central notion of organism which Whitehead had earlier defined as a unit made up of smaller structured
units, and which is not only extended spatially and temporally but is also a 'functioning' unit, suggesting an unfolding end to be realized
or actualized in its purposive process from 'privacy' to 'publicity'. Whitehead stresses further that his concept of organism includes not
only living things possessed of mental life but also inert entitites such as stones which may be said to have sentient experience . At the
highest levels, especially in the case of man, the totality of the experience gives rise also to consciousness as an aspect of feeling .
Whitehead in fact distinguishes three purposive stages, a stage of 'propositional feeling' or 'instinctive intuition' [g] being said to emerge
between physical and conscious purposes [427-8]. He supposes himself also to have overcome the Cartesian mind-body dualism, in that
he argues for both unified behaviour and consciousness of a unified experience. Although mentality is non-spatial, its is a reaction from
and integration with spatial physical experience [165-6]. The 'mind' is also understood as the centre of unifying control [h] a
progressive rise into which can be traced throughout the hierarchy of living organisms [ibid.]. The individual self, it is
therefore free activity the process of shaping this welter of material into a consistent pattern of feelings, which can also control and
shape the environment (including its own body). To the extent, however, that the self 'conforms' to that environment and to its own past,
it may be said to be determined [i]. There is no absolute freedom; freedom, 'givenness', potentiality, are notions which presuppose and
limit each other [sec. 202].
Causation [see also sec. 3.] [Process, Pt II, ch. VIII, secs. III-V.] Whitehead rejects empiricist and Kantian accounts because they locate
causation only in the 'mode of presentational immediacy'. This is, however, a later stage of the perceptual process. In fact, he says, our
notion of causation arose because man lives amid experiences in the 'mode of causal efficacy'. If we actually look at experience we find
that the causal nexus should not therefore be derived from the presupposed sequence of immediate presentations but rather that this
perceptive mode gives us information about percepta in the more aboriginal mode of causal efficacy [j]. Thus again the 'gap' or
'bifurcation' between appearance and reality in this case with reference to causal processes is for Whitehead overcome, in so far as
he seems to be advocating a continuity between different grades of actual occasions; and causation throughout "never for a moment
seems to lose its grip".
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
[5] [gen 5] [Process and Reality, Pt V.] Whitehead extends his categoreal scheme into religion (and indeed also the moral and aesthetic
realms). In so far as the functioning of unities may be supposed to involve a drive to a realization of their subjective forms a process
of self-creation he regards each one as the result of an intrinsic creativity in Nature, and as exhibiting what he calls
'appetition' [a]. God is conceived of as the fundamental "principle of concretion" underlying and at the same time subject to this creative
process. Moreover, as actual entities come into being through the realization of 'eternal objects' (forms), so is God's own nature or self-
formed, expanded, more fully articulated, and provides the ground (Whitehead calls it God's 'consequent nature') for them to be
objectified. God is thus the foundation of the overlapping of events ("extensive connections"), their actualization, and their
objectification in others. God seems therefore to be both the single principle of ordering and permanence in the universe (equated with
His 'primordial nature') and the ongoing pluralistic process of becoming which is Nature itself [b], but who also provides support for
individuality within the organic totality.
CRITICAL SUMMARY
As a 'speculative' metaphysical philosopher Whitehead belongs in the first rank, though his thought goes against the two main tendencies
of twentieth century English philosophy empiricism/ positivism and language analysis. This is perhaps surprising with respect to the
latter, given that Whitehead was the co-author with Russell of Principia Mathematica. However, his metaphysics of process is grounded
in scientific concepts and is influenced by his work in logic and mathematics. His metaphysics is thus non-idealistic or, at least, as he
put it himself, it might be considered as a transformation of some main doctrines of Absolute Idealism onto a realistic basis [Process and
Reality, Preface, viii].
Many critics have found Whitehead's idiosyncratic terminology uncongenial and not a little obscure. (Indeed in this respect we may
regard him as the Heidegger of Anglo-American philosophy!) It has been objected also that he is too prone to make assertions rather than
to engage in sustained argument. But such a view fails to take account of the primary aim of his speculative philosophy. It has been said
also that his use of categories is illegitimate to the extent that they cut across boundaries being applied indiscriminately to biology,
physics, religion, and so on. The notion of 'feeling', for example, is claimed by Whitehead to be exhibited throughout Nature in general.
Nevertheless, on the positive side his system is impressive for its vision and scope; for his movement away from the restrictive views of
empiricism, 'atomism', and rationalism, to overcome fragmentation and 'bifurcation'; and his attempt to achieve integration of individuals
within a network of relationships in Nature. His emphasis on objects as events also constitutes a new way of looking in modern
philosophy, which some later thinkers have found stimulating and useful.
SANTAYANA
(1863 1952)
AESTHETICS/ RELIGION
[1] Santayana's aesthetics is largely the product of his early period [The Sense of Beauty, The Life of Reason, vol, IV] when he was
concerned with grounding the life of the mind in a biological/ evolutionary context and was seeking to give an account of aesthetic
experience and judgement in psychological terms. Aesthetic value, manifested in beauty, relates to what he calls intrinsic and objectified
pleasure. By this he means that we experience it as belonging to the work of art itself and not to the perceiver [a]. While the experience
of beauty is unanalysable, Santayana does distinguish between the materials, form, and expressiveness of a work of art. The materials
consist of sensuous elements which can be synthesized by the mind's activity to produce a form or arrangement. But the materials and
the form have aesthetic value in themselves. The expressiveness of the work concerns its capacity to produce ideas or images
aesthetic, moral, or intellectual, which add to its value. Santayana regards works of art in general as abstract symbolizations of the
environment and human interests, and as expressing man's inner "moral and dramatic" unities and knowledge of life as a whole, thereby
increasing his happiness [b]. This can be seen, he says, firstly in the practical and then in the fine arts which develop from them. In so far
as experience is the criterion of aesthetic value, Santayana rejects any universal or objective standard, and denies that beauty possesses
the quality of 'disinterestedness' [c].
[2] As for religion, Santayana [Life of Reason, vol. III] thinks of this as a poetic transformation of our 'natural' life. He rejects it as an
expression of truth. Religion is myth. Its value lies solely in its efficaciousness in organizing our moral lives and in its support for the life
of the imagination and of spirituality (as against animal desires). He sees the function of religious discourse as only symbolic to
express moral values and ideals [a]. He also rejects both mystical religions and authoritarian structures.
KNOWLEDGE
[3] [The Life of Reason, vol. 1 (Common Sense).] We cannot know reality as it is in itself. Our knowledge must be indirect and
representational. Reason works on the data of sense to produce "concretions in experience". These in turn give rise to concepts or
"concreteness in discourse". Santayana thinks of these as related 'dialectically'. They are then fashioned and developed by the active
imagination which Santayana sees as integral to the life of reason. In constructing concretions of experience and discourse,
consciousness in effect imposes unity and meaning on reality [a]. However Santayana offers no criterion by which the "constructed
unities" of our experience can be recognised as factual unities, ideal correspondences with the real (and thereby can belong to our
understanding), and not just dramatic and moral unities. This matter clearly raises the problem of scepticism; and he attempts to deal
with it in his later work [Scepticism and Animal Faith]. He suggests that if we consider what is immediately presented to us in
experience without reference to origin, and disregarding the existence of the external world, the self, and so on, we are left only with
'essences'. But while reason or imagination cannot establish that such essences are substantial and belong in reality to the natural order,
therein possessing 'causal efficacy', our "animal faith" points to an external world transcending our immediate experience [b]. The realm
of Being or essences is explored in his metaphysics.
METAPHYSICS
[4] [The Realms of Being.] Santayana distinguishes four Modes of Being. (1) Matter possesses the properties of 'spatial extension' and
'temporal process'. It can be known only through essences [a], but even these are inadequate to reveal it as continuity underlying change.
(2) Essence is the primary mode of Being. There are infinitely many 'eternal' essences, their 'being' consisting solely in self-identity with
no reference to spatial or temporal location. Taken together they make up the absolute essence of 'Pure Being', which is the common
characteristic of all essences [b]. However, not all essences are actually exemplified in matter; so those that are not do not exist in the
material mode of Being. (3) Spirit. This is not the physical or behavioural unity of an organism, which Santayana calls the 'psyche'; nor
is it the set of mental events. Rather it is "pure transcendental consciousness", whose job is to 'intuit' individual essences without regard
to truth, significance, or material existence. The life of intuition, he says, may constitute a unity, and as such it is man's highest good.
But it has no cognitive value [c]. (4) Truth is "the sum of all propositions" about what exists, has existed, or might exist among the
infinite number of essences. He rejects pragmatic approaches and also the concept of necessary truths; the coincidence of all truth with
reality is contingent. Even mathematical truths are considered to be contingent [d].
ETHICS
[5] Santayana asserted [The Sense of Beauty] that morality consists in the avoidance of suffering, pleasure being secured through
aesthetic experience. However, he later modified this hedonism recognising the possibility of choice and preference [see The Life of
Reason, vol. V; see also Winds of Desire] [a]. Certainly there is a rational morality which is concerned with the genuinely good and
requires a careful examination of alternatives and a reconciliation of different satisfactions. (The "pre-rational morality" of individuals
whose lives are governed solely by impulse and who have no conception of alternatives is here contrasted with the "post-rational
morality" of those who shun the natural world and embrace some religion of salvation.) But even rational morality, which seems to
involve acceptance of an ideal standard, is a matter of personal choice and temperamental bias.
SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY
[6] [The Life of Reason, vol. II; Dominations and Powers.] Santayana distinguishes two levels of society. Society in a full or genuine
sense is that of the mind and is the means whereby the ideal life of reason can be achieved. However, considered at the lower level as the
complex of human institutions such as the family or the state, society's function is a practical one; to provide for man's general well-
being [a]. Santayana also allows for associations (grounded in, for example, patriotism) beyond the primary ones. He regards these as
characterizing 'free' or 'rational' society. But such institutions constitute what we might term the infrastructure of the life of reason.
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Santayana's philosophy is marked by its vision and comprehensiveness but at the same time by a certain lack of rigour features which
despite his disavowal might suggest some influence from nineteenth century developments in German philosophy (though he did
acknowledge parallels in the work of Husserl). His principal themes are also perhaps those which lay him most open to objections.
(1) In his epistemology his commitment to a representative theory of perception is uncritical. His appeal to a belief based on 'animal
faith' would probably fail to answer the arguments of a thorough-going sceptic, particularly as he locates certainty in knowledge of
essences. Indeed his metaphysics of realms of being, although illuminating, is characterized by assertion rather than detailed argument or
awareness of possible difficulties.
(2) The distinctions Santayana makes in his ethics between pre-rational, rational, and post-rational society are of considerable interest in
the context of a philosophy of culture. But while he has moved away from his earlier crude hedonism (grounded in a psychological
account of aesthetics), he has not really disengaged himself from a relativism contingent on the bias of individual temperament.
(3) His emphasis on society as the means by which individuals might achieve the 'life of reason' in their apprehension of essences is
arguably unbalanced, and has the effect of subordinating the more immediate practical considerations most theories of society are
concerned with. His anti-liberal and anti-democratic tendencies have also been viewed unfavourably by many western philosophers
today.
RUSSELL
(1872 1970)
METAPHYSICS
[2] Russell's metaphysics (and his theory of knowledge see below) are closely bound up with his views on logic and language. In his
earliest period, having rejected the doctrine of internal relations and dogmatic monistic idealism, he was an extreme realist, believing in
the actual existence of a plurality of external relations, universals, spatial points, instants of time, numbers, and perhaps also 'selves' [a].
But in due course he came to extend the reductive analysis he had used in mathematics to the wider sphere of philosophy, in particular to
the language employed to describe the physical world [Our Knowledge of the External World]. Points, instants, material particles are
now regarded as logical constructions of sets of events. Physical objects are definable in terms of actual sense-data (for example, red
patches) or possible sense-data ('sensibilia'), sense-data being regarded as physical entities located in the nervous system. This is a
phenomenalist theory [b]. Likewise he supposed the 'self' to be a constructed collection of states sharing the same common quality of
being described as 'mental', and which are apprehended as the 'act of awareness'. But we have no direct acquaintance with this self as
such [c]. Russell thus held that we use different 'languages': one to describe our ordinary everyday experiences of tables, trees, people,
but translatable into another for the purposes of natural science (which makes use of such concepts as space, time, particle) and
psychology (mental states) [d]. And he seemed to use his reductive analysis techniques as a means of revealing what he supposed to be
the ultimate constituents of reality [see 'The Philosophy of Logical Atomism']. The ideal or 'basic' language supposedly represents in its
structure ('isomorphically') the nature and structure of the 'real' world as consisting of a plurality of particulars ('logical atoms' sense-
data and universals) which are independent of each other [e]. The common sense world of everyday experience can then be understood
as consisting of complexes of atomic facts, for example, 'This is white' (particular), and 'All men are mortal' (universal). Russell soon
recognised that there were difficulties with his logical atomism and his postulation of isomorphism between language and 'reality'. We
can never be sure we have actually reached logical ultimates; and general facts may have to be admitted as ultimate constituents if
general statements cannot be shown to be functions of atomic statements.
In the next stage of his thought Russell eliminated even the 'act of awareness' he had supposed to be required to apprehend the collection
of states partly constituting the mind. He now [Analysis of Mind] adopted a form of 'neutral monism'. Both mind and matter are neutral
constructions or complexes of particulars which are neither mental nor material. Sense-data may be physical and psychical , depending
on the way we group them with other particulars in our common sense experience of events, that is, on whether we relate them to the
viewing of images from our own perspective or to the appearances in space of objects. To all intents and purposes this adds up to an
abandonment by Russell of the view of sense-data as physical and extra-mental objects of awareness, and of the notion of any intentional
mental act [f]. As for 'universals', he seemed later to think of these as empirically correlatable qualities common to the individual things
which are collections of them (redness, hardness, and so on) [IMT, ch. 6] [g].
KNOWLEDGE
[3] Russell's theory of knowledge is in its fundamentals relatively stable and consistent. Throughout his writings knowledge tends to be
presented as a relationship between the knower and 'objects'. But as to what these objects are and how they are known he offered
different answers at different times reflecting the various shifts and modifications in his metaphysics and philosophy of language.
In his earliest period [especially Problems of Philosophy] he distinguished (a) things and (b) truths. Knowledge of things he called
knowledge by acquaintance; and under this heading he included sense-data, universals, and probably mental states and his own 'self' or
mind. The objects of knowledge of truths are judgements, or beliefs that something is the case. Knowledge that is thus subordinated to
knowledge of. Truths, he said, may be (i) self-evident our knowledge then being 'intuitive'; or (ii) derivative such truths being
'deduced' from self-evident truths. Examples of truths known intuitively are the principles of logic and mathematics, the principles of
induction, and truths which 'correspond' to complex facts, including truths of perception and immediate memory. From our knowledge of
things together with our knowledge of truths we may derive knowledge of things by description. Russell here included physical objects,
other human beings, and minds [a].
Because of difficulties associated with inference to physical objects and mental selves Russell subsequently supposed such objects of
knowledge to be constructions out of subjective or 'lived' immediate experience. Objects of knowledge then become constituents of
atomic facts, namely sense-data and universals, expressed in atomic sentences (from which complexes can be built truth-functionally) .
[see Our Knowledge of the External World; Analysis of Mind] [b]. Later still [An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, ch. 19] he came to
admit that we cannot know whether atomic facts are simples, that is, ultimate entities. Having rejected sense-data, so as to avoid
solipsism, he returned again to a consideration of the possibility of inference as a basis for knowledge and attempted to show how
inferences to the general propositions of science might be justified [Human Knowledge, Pt III, ch. III and passim] [c]. Such inferences
are not demonstrative unlike those employed in mathematics and logic. But he recognised that there are inferences which we accept
as having varying degrees of probability though many generalizations are of course false. Can we then establish criteria for
distinguishing between valid and invalid inferences in science? How far should we allow ourselves to move away from a fundamentally
empiricist position? To deal with these issues Russell sketched out a number of principles, though these were neither systematically
formulated nor in any sense proven. He supposed rather that they are 'justified' in that they provide the framework within which our
inherently biological propensity to draw inferences can operate, and which is successful in so far as our whole system of science and
everyday knowledge 'works' [d]. Five postulates were set out [HK, Pt VI, ch. IX, though he said it might be possible to operate with
fewer. They are:
(1) The postulate of 'quasi-permanence': given an event A, it is usually the case that an event similar to A is found near to it in time and
space.
(2) The postulate of 'separable causal lines': it is often possible to form a series of events which enables us to infer something from a few
of its members to the others.
(3) The postulate of 'spatio-temporal continuity': if there is a causal connection between events which are 'non-contiguous, intermediate
links in the chain can be found.
(4) The 'structural' postulate: if a number of structurally similar complex events occur close to a centre, then it is usually the case that
they all belong to causal lines originating in an event of similar structure at the centre.
(5) The postulate of 'analogy': if we have reason to suppose of two classes of observed events, A and B, that A causes B, then it is
probable that if A occurs then B also does, though we have not observed it.
ETHICS
[4] Russell started out [for example, Philosophical Essays, ch. I] by accepting the 'objectivist' view that good and bad are 'qualities'
which belong to objects independently of any individual's opinion, and (the 'non-naturalist' view) that they cannot be inferred from any
other properties. He also rejected the view that to say x is good is to say something about one's feelings or desires [a]. People, he said,
generally agree on what is intrinsically valuable. He later [An Outline of Philosophy] radically reversed his account of ethics to adopt
a 'subjectivist' position. Disagreement about values is a disagreement of 'taste', that is, they are about our feelings, desires,
attitudes. There are no ethical 'facts'; good and bad are not independent qualities of objects of objects indeed they are not qualities at
all. Moral judgement is an expression of desire [b]: but Russell distinguished between personal desires (for example, for food) and
impersonal desires (for example, that the monarchy should be abolished). It is the latter which are appropriate to moral judgement in the
strict sense. Moreover, people disagree not only about the means to achieve particular ends but about the ends themselves (which may of
course affect discussion about the means). Nevertheless the 'rightness' of actions must still be assessed in terms of their consequences,
however we differently we may judge these consequences [c].
Despite this fundamental change of standpoint, Russell consistently regarded as illegitimate any 'naturalistic' move from factual
premisses (be they empirical or metaphysical) to conclusions which are statements of value [d]. These do not assert anything, he said,
and therefore cannot be true or false.
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
[5] Russell's attitude to religion and theology was on the whole negative and sceptical. God's existence, he said, is not provable and
although we cannot be certain, it is highly improbable that there is such a being, not least because of the presence of evil in the
world [a] a world which Russell described as being fundamentally horrible. Similarly he asserted that there is no evidence to support
the view that anything 'spiritual' survives the dissolution of the body after death [b]. Nevertheless he had some sympathy for rationalist
philosophers, as against 'fideists' and those who appeal to feeling. Faith is subjective and cannot support objective claims [c]. At least the
rationalists attempt to argue their case though Russell rejected the arguments. He regarded all organized religion as having bad
consequences for individuals and societies, particularly when grounded solely in faith and feeling a stance which for him was
inconsistent with open-mindedness. In general his own attitude to what he perceived as 'cosmic injustice' has much in common with that
of the Stoics; he admired the courage they showed in the pursuit of truth [d].
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Much criticism of Russell's philosophy may well be regarded as inappropriate in so far as his ideas were constantly changing and
evolving. Indeed he was his own severest critic thus reflecting his scrupulous intellectual honesty and his single-minded quest for
truth and certainty. Nevertheless there are some permanent features of his thought. He remained committed to a denotative theory of
meaning and to a general empiricism in his epistemology and metaphysics; and these positions have stimulated legitimate debate.
(1) Some critics have objected to his Theory of Descriptions (which he formulated to deal with consequences of his theory of meaning).
Following Frege, they argue that Russell failed to take account of the way that descriptive phrases are actually used in everyday
discourse, namely, that use presupposes the existence of the objects to which the descriptions refer. They criticize further Russell's
assumption that underlying the potentially misleading grammatical forms of sentences are logical forms (which Russell also identified
with the logical forms of the 'facts' which would verify what the sentences express).
(2) Objections have also been made against Russell's account of knowledge (and the 'metaphysics' associated with it). His distinction
between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description involved the postulation of basic entities 'logical atoms',
subsequently identified with percepts, images, 'sensa', as immediate objects of acquaintance. Physical objects and the self are therefore
regarded variously as constructions or inferences. Recent critics have argued against such inferential realism and postulation of 'sensa',
not least because of their alleged status as 'private' entities, that is, private to the perceiver.
One's attitude to such criticisms of both Russell's Theory of Descriptions (and his account of meaning) and his theory of perception will
of course depend on what view one holds of the nature and functioning of language. This continues to be a disputed issue. In the recent
climate of 'linguistic' or 'ordinary language' philosophy it is arguable that the later philosophy of Russell has probably been underrated.
(3) Many commentators (and not only professional philosophers) have balked at Russell's 'subjectivist' ethics and his agnostic, sceptical
pessimism about matters of religion. And they have suggested that it is difficult to reconcile this with Russell's public advocacy of the
rightness or wrongness of statements and actions of political or religious leaders. In answer to this it might be said that while he certainly
held that morality is in some sense a matter of personal 'taste', one's preferences can be justified on rational grounds (say, with reference
to ends and means) supported by discussion, and they may come to be shared by others in the community. This of course underpins
Russell's commitment to the open society, freedom of thought, and his concerns about excesses of state power.
MOORE
(1873 1958)
KNOWLEDGE
[2] In his lectures of 1910-11 [Some Main Problems of Philosophy, ch. 6] Moore had regarded propositions (or complexes of things) as
objects of belief not beliefs themselves. Some propositions are true (they are 'facts'), some false, truth being something we can
directly 'intuit'. Knowledge is thus our awareness of propositions, while perception is knowledge of existential propositions [a]. How
then do we account for false beliefs? There must be false propositions, Moore said; they are the objects of false beliefs. But when we
have a false belief we believe 'what is not', so there cannot be an object. He therefore concluded not only that there were no false
propositions but also that there were no true ones either. Nevertheless in later lectures of the 1910-11 series [ibid., chs 13-16] he
maintained that when we believe something to be true its truth must consist in its correspondence to a fact [b].
In his 'Refutation of Idealism' Moore undertook a thorough critique of idealism, which he supposed to be epitomized primarily by
Berkeley's 'esse est percipi' (though he seemed also to include 'being thought' as an aspect of 'being perceived'). Moore wanted to
separate the concept of being from that of being perceived; they are neither identical nor connected in an 'organic unity'. He thus
distinguished between an act of consciousness and the actual object. This act of consciousness, however, is also an act of cognition: to
have an idea or sensation is to know, that is, be aware of something outside, which is not now a proposition but may be a physical
object [c]. Later ['Nature and Reality of Objects of Perception'] Moore argued that the term 'sensation' is ambiguous. The actual 'content'
of, say, a seeing experience (he uses the term 'sense-datum' to refer to this content) may cease to exist, in which case the seeing itself
also ceases. But what is experienced (the physical object we ordinarily believe we directly perceive) may continue to exist [d].
Knowledge in a general sense, for Moore, consists in a relationship. He firstly distinguishes between knowledge by direct apprehension
(acquaintance) and knowledge by indirect apprehension. A typical example of the former is the relationship between the consciousness
of a perceiver and, say, a patch of colour. Memory experiences illustrate the latter as when we remember seeing an object but neither
it nor the associated sense-data are present to our consciousness. Knowledge in a 'proper' sense is now defined as involving (1) a
complex relation between an act of consciousness and a direct apprehension of a proposition; provided (2) the proposition is true, we
believe it to be true, and there are grounds for our belief (though Moore does not say what these might be). If the proposition is known to
be true directly without further support, this form of 'proper' knowledge is called immediate. Moore also refers to what we might call
latent knowledge, that is, knowledge we have in one of the previous senses but where there is nothing we are actually conscious of at the
moment (for example, that 12 x 3 = 36). But in general he is critical of any distinction between 'acquaintance' and 'description'.
Knowledge by acquaintance, he says, is neither knolwledge nor acquaintance [Some Main Problems of Philosophy].
The kinds of things that, according to Moore, we may be supposed to know include not only material objects but also acts of
consciousness, sense-data, universals, matters of fact, synthetic necessary truths, and 'entities' such as 'the good' [e]. But his account of
knowledge raises two problems. (1) How can we be sure of our knowledge of these various things? To answer this Moore generally
invokes commonsense or 'ordinary' belief ['A Defence of Common Sense' and 'Proof of an External World']. We can appeal to facts and
point to objects. There are also other people we can communicate with [f]. Thus he is broadly empiricist, though it is clear that
'experience' for him includes much more than what we gain through the senses. (2) In perception, how should we describe sense-data and
account for the relationship between them and (a) universals, and (b) physical objects? As to the nature of a sense-datum, what we
immediately perceive, Moore says, is not part of the surface of an object, nor is it the appearance of such a part. Still less is it the name
of a set of actual or possible sensations. Rather we must suppose a sense-datum is some sort of object that exists only when we are
perceiving it. Indeed different people have different and often inconsistent sense-data. He concludes that a visual sense-datum is a patch
of colour which, as a particular, relates to the colour itself, colour being a non-relational universal. As for the relationship between sense-
data and material objects, Moore oscillated between a logical constructivist or phenomenalist theory and a version of
representationalism [g], both of which raise difficulties concerning our knowledge of physical objects.; and he was never really satisfed
with either. He suggested later that these problems might be dealt with by means of inductive or analogical arguments.
ETHICS
[3] [See especially Principia Ethica.] Moore rejects any attempt to define 'the good' in terms of some natural quality, or indeed in terms
of any quality at all. To try to do so is to commit what he calls 'the naturalistic fallacy'. If, for example, we define good as pleasure,
then when we say 'pleasure is good' we are saying no more than 'pleasure is pleasure'. Good, for Moore, is essentially indefinable and
unanalysable; it is a non-natural entity which we can 'intuit' in things. At best, all we can do is to see how 'good' relates to other value
terms to determine its meaning by engaging in a kind of descriptive language analysis [a]. What kinds of things can be said to be good?
Moore's account is 'organicist', that is, he thinks of the goods man aspires to as unities whose goodness is more than just a mechanical
sum of their parts. And of such goods he singles out friendship and appreciation of beauty. To determine this he imagines each whole to
be the only thing existing in the universe and then considers whether it would be better if it existed than if it did not.
Ethics is also concerned with rights, duties, and virtues; and each of these concepts, Moore says, is definable in terms of goodness. To
determine the rightness of an action, how we ought to behave in a given situation, or what being virtuous consists in, therefore requires a
consideration of the causal consequences how much good is produced, whether it is the greatest amount as compared with what
alternative actions might bring about. (This is not the same as saying that an action is morally obligatory if the actual performing of it
makes the universe better than if one were to perform a different action [see Ethics].) However, he recognised that any assessment of
consequences is not an easy task and that that following the conventional rules (rights and duties) of society is best calculated to
maximize the good [b].
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Moore's arguments in his metaphysics and theories of knowledge are generally inconclusive. But they do illustrate the importance for
him of careful examination of the meanings of words, in both their 'ordinary' and philosophical contexts though as a means of
achieving clarification rather than to show that the relevant philosophical problems are in any way spurious. Nevertheless, for all their
supposed simplicity his conclusions are not immune to criticism; and there are many assumptions and unanswered questions. The
following issues are particularly important:
(1) What is the basis or justification for the distinction between the 'act of consciousness' and its objects?
(2) The relationship of sense-data to physical or material objects and to universals needs to be clarified. What are sense-data (e.g., a
patch of colour)? Are they particulars or universals? Moore says they exist only when we are perceiving them. They do not belong to the
surface of objects. But is it not physical objects that we perceive? How then do sense-data relate to objects? Moore does not seem to
offer any definitive conclusions on these matters. Likewise, in his metaphysics we are left with a multitude of 'entities', which are not to
the taste of many recent philosophers, any more than is his distinction between 'exist' and 'are'.
(3) As for his ethics, it is generally held now that Moore's 'naturalistic fallacy' is less devastating than has often been supposed in the
past. There is no objection to defining good stipulatively in terms of, say, pleasure (though this may not be a fruitful approach to human
behaviour). In any case, if there is a fallacy, it consists in the attempt to define good (a value) in terms of a non-moral quality (fact)
rather than being any inherent inconsistency in ethical naturalism itself. However, against Moore it might be said that we do in fact
define 'good' in different ways and in different contexts, as a qualification of some object (good book, good person, good mark, and
so on). Another objection is that Moore has a limited view of ethical qualities. There are also the standard difficulties with his
utilitarianism. Should consequences be used as the criterion of morality? Are consequences quantifiable, measurable? It is arguable also
that Moore's conventionalism does not cope adequately with moral conflicts.
SCHELER
(1874 1928)
PHENOMENOLOGY
Max Scheler was born in Munich of a Jewish mother and a Protestant father. He studied philosophy at the University of Jena under the
idealist 'philosopher of life' Rudolf Eucken, and became a Privatdozent there in 1901. He returned to Munich in 1907 and came under
the influence of Brentano and Husserl, but in 1910 he retired to follow the life of an independent scholar in Berlin. In 1917-18 he worked
for the German Foreign Office as a diplomat. After the war he returned to teaching and was appointed professor of philosophy and
sociology at Cologne. He also converted to Catholicism, but he gradually moved away from his commitment as he developed his own
religious and philosophical concept of a 'cosmic becoming'. He moved to the University of Frankfurt shortly before his death.
METHODOLOGY/ KNOWLEDGE
[1] Scheler made full use of the phenomenological method and indeed went much further than Husserl in applying it to all aspects of
human consciousness and focusing particularly on what he regarded as 'essential' to human personality, namely, feelings, and especially
love, rather than just on reason or volition. Thus, in a sense, emotions are 'cognitive' and can be said to 'intend' their own objects [a]. In
his later work [see Man's Situation in the Cosmos] he placed great emphasis on 'life philosophy' and man's being situated in nature and
culture, arguing that this had been neglected by more cognitive and rationalist philosophies [b]. At the same time he sought to reconcile
this with phenomenology's concern with Geist, that is, 'spirit' or 'mind'. He accepts that knowing is an intentional act towards an
object, but he stresses that knowledge itself is to be interpreted in pragmatic or instrumentalist terms [c]. It must be understood in the
context of the uses to which it is to be put rather than as an intellectual relationship between the knower and the world. Ideas brought
into being by spirit through life's 'realizing conditions' [see 4c] do not always 'work'. Throughout his philosophical career [but especially
in Sociology of Knowledge] he distinguished three kinds of knowledge, each with its own function:
(1) Scientific knowledge. This is knowledge of contingent particulars, and it is characterized by man's attempt to achieve control over
the natural world and human society [d].
(2) 'Essential' knowledge. This is knowledge of 'essences', 'universals', or 'structures' of real or imagined things categories of
being,and requires the use of reason and the phenomenologist's eidetic reduction. Man's motive for seeking this kind of knowledge
is love [e].
(3) Religious knowledge. This consists of knowledge of 'Absolute Being' or God and of man's 'salvation'. Man's aim is to
achieve oneness with this 'ultimate ground' of reality. This union is to be achieved through a synthesis of scientific and essential
knowledge; and Scheler allows that we can have direct experience of the Divine [f]. Similarly we can experience directly the feelings
and moods of another person, perceivable in bodily events, although the 'intimate sphere' remains private and closed to our inspection.
Indeed, he implies that it is through the prior giveness of others that we come to know our own selves [g].
ETHICS
[5] [See especially Formalism in Ethics and The Nature of Sympathy.] Ethical and aesthetic values for Scheler are cognitively and
emotionally a priori, in so far as reason and emotion are preconditions of experience. So what are values? They are the universal and
essential properties of objects by virtue of which we call them good. He distinguished five types all located in what he called man's
'order of love' (ordo amoris) and each experienced in particular kinds of feelings [a]. In ascending order of quality they are: (1) sensory
values, such as pleasant and unpleasant; (2) pragmatic values needs and utility; (3) 'life' values, for example, nobility and
'ordinariness'; (4) mental or 'spiritual' values, subdivided into aesthetic, juridical, and cognitive (in relation to truth); and (5) religious
values, especially the holy and the unholy.
The purpose of ethics for Scheler was (as in the case of knowledge) broadly utilitarian and pragmatic to achieve authenticity, love and
oneness with others and with God [b]. He contrasted what he saw as the authenticity and spontaneity of one's "ideal responsibility to be"
(idealisches Seinsollen) with the artificial formality of the "ethical obligation to act" (ethisches Tunsollen). In achieving the former we
genuinely encounter and respect the subjectivity of another person; and this transcends understanding, empathy, or even the feeling of
"being at one" with him (Einsfhlen) [c]. In ascending from the qualitatively lower values to the highest we experience love, culminating
in what Scheler called 'fulguration' (Aufblitzen) the 'lightning flash or intuition of the loved object' value. Love is thus the foundation
of religious ideals [d].
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Scheler is of particular interest for his use of the phenomenological method to analyse values and religious feelings rather than just
consciousness and experience in the Husserlian manner. His sociology of knowledge, which attempts to describe the relationships
between distinct but interdependent spheres of the natural and human sciences, is also important, as is his contribution to philosophical
anthropology in general. He has, however, been criticized for his concentration on emotion and action and for his 'pragmatic' approach to
knowledge and ethics. It is argued that he has not paid sufficient attention to theory and intellectualizing. It is probably fair to say that
while Scheler was right to reject the empty formalism of Kant's ethics, his own claim that values and emotions are revealed in subjective
experience by phenomenological analysis and are 'objective' realities has not been satisfactorily demonstrated. As against this, he
deserves credit for his attempts to overcome the traditional distinction between cognition and feeling by relating them within the context
of the mind as a functioning unity.
SCHLICK
(1882 1936)
KNOWLEDGE
[1] Schlick's epistemology was grounded in the distinction between necessary and empirical propositions. In his early period
[see General Theory of Knowledge] he criticized two key theses:
(1) He rejected the possibility of synthetic a priori judgements, largely because of the incorporation of Newtonian physics within the
more embracing (and arguably more correct) theory of relativity. Influenced by contemporary suggestions that general laws of nature
might be regarded as analytic or conventional judgements, Schlick accordingly returned to the clear traditional distinction between
logically necessary propositions as analytic and a priori and contingent empirical propositions, which are synthetic and a posteriori ['Is
there a Factual A Priori?']. (However, he allowed that there might be a place for necessary but synthetic propositions in logic and
mathematics, though not in their application to the empirical world) [a].
(2) He disagreed with any search for incontrovertible 'foundations' of knowledge. [See General Theory of Knowledge.] Instead he argued
in favour of a reliance of 'scientific' investigations of the phenomenal world on propositions purporting to describe reality and which
were to be accepted until they had been shown to be false [b]. Knowledge for Schlick was essentially knowledge of 'sameness' of
sense data, memory images, or conceptual structures, ordered mathematically, as when we know something as being something else (for
example, that a cat is a mammal). Knowledge thus comes to be of relations between phenomena and not their content. Rejecting idealism
Schlick called his position 'critical realism' [c]. Schlick subsequently changed his views [see 'The Foundations of
Knowledge']. Philosophy was no longer to be regarded as a search for knowledge; it is not a 'science'. Instead, he said, its function was
essentially one of logical analysis to investigate and attain an understanding of what is involved when we say we have knowledge in a
variety of fields [d].
PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE
[2] Schlick was interested in the question how language is used to articulate 'science' or knowledge. Initially [General Theory of
Knowledge] he was concerned with the meaning of propositions which he defined as sentences (composed of written and spoken
symbols) together with the logical and linguistic rules for their use. It is as a result of our failing to attend to these rules (as when we
sometimes illegitimately formulate sentences in subject-predicate terms) that philosophical errors arise. Violations of linguistic rules
occurs also in metaphysics when attempts are made to know the content of phenomena instead of confining attention to relations
between them [a].
After he had changed his views about the nature of the philosophical enterprise he became interested in the different ways one could talk
about the world. This approach allowed a resolution of the conflict between idealism and realism: it was no longer a 'factual' issue.
Likewise he considered it a matter of convenience whether we should regard the data of science particles, waves, and so on as
'real' or 'unreal' ['Causality in Contemporary Physics'], and whether we should consider the human organism in mental or in physical
terms (though he later adopted a more 'neutral monist' position) [b]. And he came to regard philosophy more generally as the activity of
seeking the meanings of the units out of which language is constructed. These rules would, he thought, lead to 'deictic' definitions, that
is, where the propositions are determined by reference to the context of their utterance 'Facts and Propositions']. He sought now to show
that it was through our ignoring the different contexts and thus different rule systems governing the use of ambiguous expressions that
philosophical problems arise. At this stage Schlick seemed to think it is sentences rather than propositions that have meaning this
being given by the rules for use [especially 'Meaning and Verification'] [c]. His criterion for meaning was verifiability. Having identified
the rules, one can interpret the sentences in order to discover whether they are meaningful, that is, whether there are circumstances or
facts which would make them true or false. In his earlier period verifiability was understood in terms of the relating of rules to empirical
data by means of a process of reduction. He later appealed to the idea of 'basic' sentences as containing the ostensively definable
observational terms (such as 'this', 'here', 'now', 'of this kind' and so on),and which he called 'constatations' or 'confirmations'
(Konstatierungen) ['Foundations of Knowledge'][d]. Those sentences which are in principle unverifiable for which there are no
confirmation procedures are meaningless. Either they violate the rules of use the 'logical grammar', or they are being made to
operate in the absence of rules altogether. As examples of meaningless propositions Schlick gave self-contradictory assertions and
metaphysical utterances [e]. To deal with the objection that verifiability by experience is essentially subjective being grounded in
one's own mental states, Schlick distinguished between the 'content' of experience and 'structural relations' between an individual's
experiences [f]. While the former are lived through and private to each person, the latter are identical for all individuals, and are the basis
for objective scientific knowledge articulated mathematically.
ETHICS
[3] [See Problems of Ethics.] Consistently with his acceptance of the verifiability criterion, Schlick rejected as meaningless abstract
ethical propositions supposedly about absolute ideals, duties, obligations. Instead he advocated an ethics grounded in the human quest
for the maximization of happiness in principle empirically testable. He was not, however, thinking of a crude hedonism but of the
realization of the quiet joy we experience when we perform actions for their own sake [a].
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Having rejected 'fundamentalist' approaches to knowledge, Schlick came to think of philosophy as an investigation into what knowing in
various fields involves, and more particularly to be an examination of the various linguistic structures through which knowledge is
expressed. The practice of philosophy therefore becomes a search for 'meanings', which Schlick the logical positivist defined by
reference to the verifiability criterion. Most of the standard objections to his thesis centre on the notion of verification. What is the
logical status of the principle itself? Is it verifiable, and if not how can it be meaningful? Is the criterion of meaningfulness perhaps too
narrow? Some critics have argued that he seems to have committed himself to an antirealist position. Schlick's attempt to solve the
problem of the alleged subjectivity of empirical verifiability by distinguishing between 'private' contents and 'public' real structural
relations has also been questioned as entailing metaphysical assumptions which are therefore not strictly meaningful and fail to provide
proper knowledge. A further objection has been made that there is an unresolved tension in Schlick's account of meaning in that he
seems to appeal to a 'use' theory as well as to verifiability.
JASPERS
(1883 1969)
EXISTENTIALISM
Karl Jaspers was born in Oldenburg, Germany. His father was a lawyer and banker. He studied law at the universities of Heidelberg and
Munich and then medicine at Berlin and Gttingen. He gained his medical doctorate from Heidelberg in 1909, specializing in psychiatry,
and his Habilitation in psychology in 1913. He became professor of psychology at Heidelberg in 1916, but having transferred his
interests to existential issues was appointed to a professorship in philosophy there in 1921. He was not permitted to teach from 1937
onwards (his wife was Jewish) but he was reappointed at the end of the war. In 1948 he took up a post at Basel University in
Switzerland.
KNOWLEDGE
[3] Jaspers' account of knowledge must be understood in the context of his view that philosophy has to be 'lived'. In so far as one's first
person experiences revealed phenomenologically can be compared to those of other 'selves' they do provide a basis for verification and
knowledge. But he accepts that such knowledge is uncertain though it has to be admitted that natural science cannot provide certainty
either, because it takes no account of the observer and is grounded in unexamined or incomplete assumptions. Complete knowledge of
the world by the transcendental self, characterized by intentionality, requires not only scientific and phenomenological methods but also
the recognition that the world points beyond itself [see sec. 2] [a].
ETHICS
[4] As already implied, Jaspers' existential philosophy has an ethical dimension, and central to this is his concept of freedom. Our
recognition of personal freedom to choose not only illuminates Existenz but also is the basis of spontaneous action; and in action we are
aware of our 'self' and the values associated with it. However, our freedom is not absolute in so far as our perception of the world and our
actions are limited by our 'historicity' [a]. Nevertheless we must make choices within these limitations. This gives rise to our experience
of guilt because we are always aware of a conflict between the demands of our authentic existential possibilities and extraneous
considerations; and we also recognise that whatever choice we make in a particular situation binds us to a corresponding set of
consequent choices. We cannot avoid this guilt. Jaspers rejects any external absolute standards which might remove from us the burden
of choice. Rather we must accept it, and it is in so doing that we can be said to be responsible. Recognition that we may not realize our
authentic possibilities or that we have run up against the limits of thought brings about our experiences of anguish or fear of the
consequences of choice. For Jaspers there are a number of ways we can respond to this. We can, for example, ignore the 'abyss' before
us. Or we can dismiss the problems as meaningless. But ideally we should accept the challenge of the experience of anguish and
summon up the courage to act authentically so as to realize our full potential as Existenz [b].
Ethics for Jaspers thus clearly has a central place in his existential philosophy in so far as in choosing and acting, in realizing value we
are engaged in the process of 'self-disclosure'. But he stresses that ethics is not just a matter of self-regulation of individuals in a
community. Both that I 'am' and my self-disclosure depend on my being reflected in other selves or existences. I can be free only to the
extent that I have a view to achieving such a relationship [c] Jaspers talks of the 'loving-strife' of communication. But by this he
means more than just friendship or professional relationships. True existential communion is 'ineffable', transcending space and time.
This is of course an ideal; we cannot escape our finitude and the inevitability of death. But it is in the conflict between endless striving to
pass beyond the limits of our existence that we discover such transcendence.
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Despite his opaque style and the repetitiousness of much of his writing, Jaspers has made a significant contribution to existential
philosophy underpinned by a phenomenological methodology, and moderated by reason (in contrast to more extreme irrational
varieties), but yet placed within a religious framework. He is important for his emphasis on commitment, authenticity, and freedom
(albeit limited by the historical dimension) as central to his ethics; for his original concept of the 'encompassing' in its various
manifestations; and also for his sceptical attitude to the epistemological claims of science. Nevertheless, a criticism often made is that his
philosophy is an attempt to talk about what he himself said lies beyond the boundaries of Transcendence and Existenz. Many
commentators are not convinced by his appeal to 'ciphers' and analogy (which, it may be remembered, is characteristic of many medieval
and Renaissance philosophers).
ORTEGA Y GASSET
(1883 1955)
ECLECTICISM
(EXISTENTIALISM/ 'RATIO-VITALISM')
Jos Ortega y Gasset was born in Madrid into an aristocratic family. He was educated by the Jesuits near Mlaga, at the University of
Madrid, gaining his doctorate in 1904, and at the Universities of Berlin, Leipzig, and Marburg. In 1910 he became professor of
philosophy at Madrid, where he remained until the start of the civil war in 1936 when he went into voluntary exile. Throughout this time
he was actively involved in politics and journalism. He returned to Spain after the second world war and in 1948 he founded the Instituto
de Humanidades.
METAPHYSICS
[1] [See especially Meditations on Quixote and 'Truth and Perspective'.] Ortega supposed it to be the job of metaphysics to articulate an
ultimate reality from which all being is derived. He rejected the opposition between 'realist' philosophies, which emphasized the primacy
of things known by the self, and 'idealist' theories which supposed the individual self to be ontologically prior to other things. Instead he
regarded the self and things to be interdependent and as such to constitute the real [a]. "I am I and my circumstance", he wrote
[Meditations]. But the self is not a mere passive receptive entity. It is active, a creative manifestation of life though Ortega does not
accept any notion of a 'vital force'. He is also dismissive of abstract reasoning. He tries therefore to blend rationalism with vitalism [b];
hence the name he gives his metaphysics 'ratio-vitalism'. Man's quest for knowledge, spirituality, fulfilment, and so on, are all
therefore comprehended under the general description 'life' or 'vitality'. Later Ortega came to recognise the limitations imposed on
individuals by virtue of their being situated in particular socio-cultural contexts the "historical horizons of human life" [c].
KNOWLEDGE
[2] ['Truth and Perspective'.] We cannot have absolute or transcendent knowledge not least because of our historicity. All our
knowledge has to be from some 'perspective' [a], that is, from a particular point of view of an individual life; and all such perspectives
are unique, necessary, and equally true. (He therefore called his theory of knowledge 'perspectivism'.).. Nevertheless, he distinguishes
the idea of an 'aristocracy of talents' from the 'sensualism of the masses' who unthinkingly accept the evidence of their own senses or
the 'authoritative' findings of science and philosophy [see 'Ideas and Beliefs']. He goes on further to reject all philosophies grounded in
sensory data and to argue in favour of an 'idealist logic'. This he sees as the production of 'aristocratic' understanding and creativity
which seeks to derive intellectual principles from the understanding [b]. These supposedly primary principles are arbitrary and
fundamentally unprovable. The tests of their 'validity' lie solely in their coherence and utility. It is quite mistaken to think of knowledge
as an attempt to 'mirror' nature. Rather it has to be seen as an activity which constructs or invents an 'unreal' world. Philosophy and
science, to the extent that they are dependent on conventionally agreed principles, are no more than 'mere ideas' to be 'played with' and
are always subject to revision in the light of their consequences [c]. Indeed Ortega calls these disciplines "mere exact fantasy".
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Ortega y Gasset was an original yet eclectic thinker who attempted to reconcile different traditions idealism and realism, rationalism
and 'vitalism'. He is notable also for his emphasis on the individual as an active self, a creative manifestation of life, as against the
impersonality of state power; for his acceptance of historicity; and for his 'perspectivism' or constructivist and revisionary theory of
knowledge. Many philosophers today would criticize him for his rejection of objectivism and his adoption of coherence and utility as the
sole criteria in accordance with which logical axioms and basic principles are to be judged. His dismissal of 'vulgar' or 'plebeian'
uncritical reliance on sense experience and authority and his affirmation of an 'aristocracy' of talents 'playing with ideas' are likewise
unlikely to find favour with thinkers for whom philosophy is still seen as a quest or truth, knowledge and reality. Nevertheless one
should not underrate the seriousness of Ortega's enterprise. As a philosopher who advocated commitment, authenticity, and self-
realization in the individual's ethical life he remains particularly relevant to the contemporary human and cultural situation.
WITTGENSTEIN
(1889 1951)
ANALYTICAL PHILOSOPHY
1. SYSTEMATIC; 2. 'ORDINARY LANGUAGE'
Ludwig Wittgenstein was born in Vienna the youngest child of a large family. His father, an industrialist, was a Lutheran, but Ludwig
was brought up in his mother's Roman Catholicism (though he was to disassociate himself from the Church as an adult). The family
home was a centre of musical life (his brother Paul was the famous pianist). He was educated firstly at home and then in Linz before
studying mechanical engineering at the Charlottenburg Polytechnic in Berlin. From 1908-11 he carried out research in aeronautics at
Manchester University. Having become interested in philosophy he went to Cambridge to study with Russell at Trinity College until the
outbreak of the First World War. While serving in the Austrian army he worked on notes which led to the publication of his Tractatus in
1921. From 1920 to 1926 he worked as a primary school teacher in Austria having decided that there were no more philosophical
problems to be solved. But in 1929 he returned to philosophy with renewed energy, and having been awarded the Cambridge doctorate
for his Tractatus he accepted a lectureship there in 1930. He remained at Cambridge until 1941 (apart from a year living in a hut in
Norway to work on his Philosophical Investigations), by which time he had succeeded Moore as professor. During the World War II he
worked as a hospital porter and as a laboratory assistant before returning to Cambridge in 1944. From 1947 to 1949 he lived in isolation
in Ireland.
METAPHYSICS/ ETHICS
[3] For Wittgenstein in his Tractatus period 'metaphysical' and ethical propositions, and indeed all 'non-scientific' propositions can have
no sense. (In his later Philosophische Bermerkungen, he said that "the sense of a question is the mode of its answering" [66-7].)
According to him most philosophical problems arise only because we insist on regarding such propositions as factual. Strictly speaking,
they are not propositions at all. He says we do not understand the logic of our language [4.003]. As a result we sometimes attempt to
transcend the boundaries of language (as when we try to talk about the relation between language and the world). Or we do not recognise
that the grammatical form of our propositions often fails to reflect their logical form. The apparent logical form of a proposition need not
be its real one. All philosophy is a 'critique of language'[4.0031]. However, it is not a systematic 'science' [4.111] [a]. Its task is to make
our thoughts clear [4.112]. Yet, in its assumptions, stance, and content the Tractatus is in its own way a 'metaphysical' text perhaps in
the way that Kant's first Critique is. Essentially it is about the nature and limits of language and the relationship between thought and the
world. Its metaphysics is thus implicit in and coextensive with his logical atomism. What 'traditional' metaphysics is supposedly 'about',
however, lies beyond language and the world [5.633]. Moreover, because everything in the world is accidental, there can be no value in
it; a thing's value would have to be necessary. Both the subject or 'ego', in relation to which good and evil exist, and the realm of value
are said to be 'transcendental'. The subject, Wittgenstein says, is a 'limit' of the world [5.632] [b]. All these things which we can say
nothing about may be supposed to exist. We still think about their possibility when we contemplate the world itself as existing and as a
limited whole. This Wittgenstein calls 'the mystical' [6.45]. But even to say that such things exist is a nonsensical proposition; and this
must be "thrown away" like a ladder once one has climbed to the top [6.54]. If we cannot speak about it, we must be silent.
In his later philosophy the problem has shifted. We are no longer concerned with the world as a limited whole beyond which there is a
realm of the unsayable. What we may say now is relative to the language game we are playing. Perhaps there are 'metaphysical', ethical,
aesthetic, religious language games, with their own rules and criteria for use. (Arguably implicit here is also the requirement that a clear
demarcation be made between the methods of the natural sciences and those appropriate to the social sciences a view which was
developed by 'neo-Wittgensteinian' philosophers.) Wittgenstein in fact talks of different 'forms of life' [PI I, 23]. But what can their
purpose be? What can they tell us? To suppose metaphysical or ethical words, for example, are scientific would be to pull them out of
their proper context to misapply the appropriate rules. If we did this we would be moving beyond the 'limits' of the language
game [c]. If you want to play your own game, so be it: but what you are doing can be properly understood only from within by the
players themselves. They cannot be judged by criteria appropriate to a different game. Thus, although Wittgenstein could not empathize
with people who engaged in metaphysical speculation or participated in religious forms of life, it would seem that, as in
his Tractatus period, he wished to protect those realms including perhaps speculative philosophy itself, from the predations of
positivistically minded philosophers and scientists. Philosophy in a strict sense, however, has now taken on a role akin to that of therapy.
Its function is to prevent us from going astray in our reasonings by bringing us back to the way that language actually used in its
'ordinary', that is, proper and appropriate context [d]. Philosophical puzzles can be solved if we discover how they arose in the first
place:
When philosophers use a word 'knowledge', 'being', 'object', 'I', 'proposition', 'name' and try to grasp the essence of the thing, one
must always ask oneself is the word ever actually used in this way in the language which is its original home? What we do is to bring
words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use. [PI I, 116]
We must, he says gnomically [I, 309], "show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle".
CRITICAL SUMMARY
It is generally accepted that Wittgenstein created two philosophies. In the first, which received its definitive expression in the Tractatus,
he set out to present logical propositions as a set of necessary tautologies which reveal the structure of language and thereby the world.
Propositions have meaning by virtue of their contingent 'picturing' of facts in the world as actualized possible connections or 'states-of-
affairs'. Names as constituents of elementary propositions thus stand in an isomorphic relationship to the simple objects in the world
which they denote. It is in the context of this thesis that he presented his account of truth-functions.
Most of the objections which can be brought against his logical atomism were later made by Wittgenstein himself. The main problems
relate to the following.
(1) Language was conceived as having but one function: to picture the world and thereby communicate facts. However, there are
difficulties with the concept of isomorphic picturing. If we say 'The cat is on the mat', are we supposing there are three separate factual
elements in the world corresponding to three constituents of the one proposition? Might formulations in different languages entail
alternative correspondences? Wittgenstein was also faced with the problem of assessing the status of the propositions of
the Tractatus itself. His view that they were 'boundary statements' neither tautologies nor factual propositions is questionable; for
in his later writings philosophy ceased to be an activity of analysing structures to draw attention to the limits of what can and cannot be
said. It becomes instead an empirical study of the many different functions a language may perform. One's attitude to this second
philosophical approach must clearly depend on one's standpoint. Those in the logical positivist or empiricist tradition would object to
Wittgenstein's criticisms of attempts to assimilate other modes of discourse to the scientific, and to his move away from the view that
philosophy should seek to eliminate errors by uncovering the formal logical structures supposedly underlying our 'ordinary' informal
discourse. Even the 'systematic' philosophers in the analytic tradition are generally not in sympathy with his informal methods.
(2) Propositions were supposed to have meaning by virtue of their 'picturing'. Against this Wittgenstein now says that rather than looking
for 'meanings' we should examine the ways language works and how it is used. Philosophical problems arise because we fail to remain
within the boundaries of a particular mode of discourse, as when, for example, we treat sensations as if they were material objects.
However, many critics would argue that we need to have some concept of meaning (perhaps intentional or 'in the mind') before we can
know how to use language correctly. And they would say that use can relate to private rules which do not require public validation.
(3) Wittgenstein claimed to have found the way to eliminate philosophical mystery and error. His critics would say that in so far as his
species of linguistic philosophy "leaves things as they are" it is not very illuminating or progressive. However, he was not opposed to
any modification of conceptual structures or to the introduction of novel criteria for usage. His objection was to using terms belonging to
a particular mode of discourse as if different criteria were already applicable. Nevertheless it is still a matter for debate as to whether
philosophical problems can be so readily eliminated in this way.
We have talked of Wittgenstein's 'two' philosophies. However, it is important to appreciate the continuities as well as the differences
between his positions. In both periods he was concerned with the nature and function of language, and with the nature, origin, and
elimination of philosophical puzzles. In both periods too he was interested in 'boundaries', though in the Tractatus his concern was with
the boundary between language in general and the 'world', whereas in his later work the boundaries lie between different modes of
discourse. The possibility of a variety of modes of discourse grounded in different 'forms of life' does of course give rise to critical issues
concerning an alleged 'relativism' in his philosophy, which does not allow for any absolute standpoint for judging, or for a 'pragmatism'
according to which any mode of discourse may be introduced if deemed to be in some sense 'useful'.
HEIDEGGER
(1889 1976)
'ONTOLOGICAL' PHENOMENOLOGY
Martin Heidegger was born in Messkirch (Baden), Germany, where his father was a Catholic sexton. He was educated at Gymnasia in
Konstanz and Freiburg before studying theology, medieval philosophy, and phenomenology at the University of Freiburg under Husserl.
He gained his doctorate in 1914 and his Habilitation in 1916, and became a Privatdozent at Freiburg. In 1922 he was appointed a
professor at Marburg, but in 1928 he returned to Freiburg to take over Husserl's chair. Having joined the National Socialist Party he was
appointed Rector of the University in 1933. However, he resigned the following year. (His equivocal attitude towards Germany's Nazi
period is a still a matter of great controversy.) He ceased lecturing in 1944 but was allowed to resume his professorship in 1955. From
1959 he lived in increasing isolation in the Black Forest.
Sources: References to Being and Time are to sections or to the paginations of the eighth (1957) German edition (English translation,
Macquarrie & Robinson) thus, in the case of the latter, 'H. 7', for example.
HERMENEUTICS
[6] Heidegger's later work, with his emphasis on the ontological primacy of language, his 'translation' of Greek texts, his quest for a
'philosophical poetry' to 'reveal' Being (and thereby Dasein) is clearly of major significance in hermeneutics. But the foundations for his
own contribution are already to be found clearly set out in Being and Time [secs 31, 32]. Consistently with his rejection of 'theoreticism'
and his emphasis on the 'engaged agency' of Dasein, he thinks of interpretation as involving a grasp of the nature of a thing by reference
to its role, that is, as a tool or piece of equipment functioning in the context of an agent's choice of possibilities towards the fulfilment of
his project. However, he distinguishes between a wider sense and a narrower sense of the term. In its wider sense (Auslegung) it covers
our everyday skills and activities. In the narrower sense Interpretation (with a capital 'I') (Interpretierung) refers to theoretical,
philosophical, academic reflection on phenomena, including reflection as a specific interpretation. Indeed Being and Time itself is an
Interpretation in that it is a philosophical exploration of Dasein. But all interpretation, he says, is grounded on understanding [sec.
33] [a] the second aspect of Dasein's relation to Being [see sec. 2]. It follows that Interpretation must also assimilate all attempts of
Dasein to explicate the Being of Nature including the findings of the mathematical and natural sciences. But whereas traditionally
such sciences have presupposed the possibility of achieving an 'objective' explanation of the 'world' (as against the 'understanding' which
supposedly characterized the 'human' sciences), Heidegger's radical shift and redefinition of understanding and Interpretation shows the
impotence of the natural sciences in this respect. These sciences are 'paradigmatic' not because of their exactitude or alleged universality
but because the entities they deal with are discovered in them "by the prior projection of their state of Being" (the only way, he says, in
which entities can be discovered) [H. 362]. The implication of this position is that the sharp dichotomy between
theNaturwissenschaften and the Geisteswissenschaften is overcome: "All understanding... operates in the fore-structure" [H. 152]. Both
kinds of sciences are modes of Interpretation but have different functions in relation to human engagement with the world and the quest
for its meaning (he refers to this engagement as "primary understanding") [b]. "Mathematics [for example] is not more rigorous than
historiology, but only narrower, because the existential foundations relevant for it lie within a narrower range" [H. 153].
Heidegger's account of Interpretation and his rejection of any possibility of an objective 'mirroring' of nature raises a serious problem
concerning truth. All understanding, Heidegger says, is circular; and we cannot get outside this hermeneutic circle. So how do we
decide between different interpretations? In the last analysis the test seems to be a pragmatic one: whether Dasein's 'engagement' with
the phenomenal world with respect to either 'possibilities' or 'factuality' is successful. And ultimately success is to be judged in
terms of the 'authenticity' or 'genuineness' of Dasein's progressive revelation to itself of Being of which it is the primary
manifestation [c].
AESTHETICS
[7] ['The Origins of the Work of Art' (in PLT).] Heidegger rejects both subjectivist views of art and the more 'classical' view that the
value of a work of art lies in its relation to, say, beauty or pleasure. For him the value pertains to what the work does, namely, showing us
what a 'thing' is discloses its being [PLT, 20-39]. There are of course different kinds of things. There are natural objects such as a
rock, and useful things such as a shoe. What of things depicted in or fashioned by works of art? Such works do not of themselves have a
specific purpose: they need to be interpreted. He makes his position clear by examining Van Gogh's painting of a peasant's shoes [32ff.]
and the example of a Greek temple [41ff.]. And to bring out the meaning of 'thing' he adapts the Aristotelian notions of form and matter
[26ff.]. In our everyday world we think of shoes only in terms of utility. This is the 'form' imposed on the 'matter' ( the leather, and so on,
of which they are made. But the painting shows us, partly 'opens', 'clarifies' how the objects are involved both with the 'world' (that is,
human products and activities, the region of 'possibilities, values, tools) and with the 'earth' [cf Geviert] which is 'actuality', raw
materials, and that which 'resists' and partly conceals human possibilties. Similarly the temple utilizes (but does not use up) 'earthy' raw
materials and sets up a structure which articulates human activity: it is a cultural artefact which has functional significance.
All art, Heidegger says, is Dichtung [PLT, 72]. By this he means in general 'invention', 'composition', but in a narrower sense poetry. In
so far as it effects unconcealment through language Dichtung in the narrower sense of poetic composition (poeisis) is primary; it is in
this opened-up realm that the other arts (painting, architecture, sculpture) can function. Its essence is to 'found' truth [57-78]; that is, (i) it
'bestows it' as a gift; (ii) grounds it in the 'earth'; (iii) initiates and prepares the way for its revelation. Truth establishes itself through all
human cultural activity: it sets itself into work; it shines forth in "the nearness of that which is not simply being, but the being that is
most of all"; it grounds itself in "essential sacrifice", and in the thinker's questioning [ ibid. 61-2]. Art always attains its historical essence
as a founding, when beings as a whole require grounding in openness [75]. In Greek times, through art being was revealed as presence;
in the mediaeval era beings were transformed into divine creations; in the modern age of technology beings were made into
manipulatable entities. But in these modes art brings about opening, 'unconcealment' (truth as aletheia), and faciltitates human
endeavour. We might say even that art uses man [a], art being the 'origin' (Ursprung 'primordial leap') of the work of art and of its
creator and preserver, thereby 'grounding' the 'historical' movement of beings in general towards their realization of potential, their
destiny: "When beings as a whole require grounding in openness, art always attains to its historical essence as founding" [75].
Heidegger is often seen as critical of modern technology. [See 'The Question Concerning Technology'.] However, he has in mind here
inauthentic technology as when it threatens to control us, or conceals the 'earth-world struggle, ignores the 'Mystery of Being'. It is
allowable as a means for opening up truth but only if we open ourselves to its essence which is contingent on our use and attitude.
[Note that techne in Greek means 'work of art', 'skill', 'craft'.] Here he contrasts the Greek temple with a power station on the Rhine.
CRITICAL SUMMARY
What are we to make of Heidegger? A controversial figure both as a thinker and a human being, he has been regarded by many critics,
particularly those in the logical positivist and analytical traditions, as a charlatan, the writer of dense, almost unreadable, indeed
nonsensical tomes; by others he has been lauded as the greatest philosopher of the twentieth century. His undeniably equivocal attitude
towards National Socialism has of course not helped his philosophy to receive a fair hearing. Nevertheless, his influence, not only in
philosophy but also in the fields of literature, theology, psychology, has for good or ill been immense. His existential-
phenomenological analysis of man as an alienated being; his plea for a return to Being as revealed through Dasein or (in his later work)
through language; his critique of what he saw as dehumanizing technology all this has had a considerable impact on twentieth century
thought.
Three general objections can be made here.
(1) Some critics have suggested that Heidegger's project fails because he never really passed beyond the finitude of man himself: Being
remains 'hidden'. He would of course have rejected this, arguing that Being is partially revealed through Dasein (which is itself a
manifestation of Being), or (in the later stages of his thought) through language.
(2) Heidegger's language has of course been the object of criticism and often ridicule. Many opponents have said that his convoluted
neologisms are totally disproportionate to what, at the end of the day, his philosophy 'boils down' to, namely, that we humans are fragile
and insecure beings in the face of a seemingly hostile cosmos. Against this it might be said that such criticisms are superficial and ignore
the difficulty of the task Heidegger had set himself and the seeming intractability of the philosophical problems he was addressing. It
remains an open question whether his ideas could have been developed more clearly: one must also of course allow for the Germanic
tradition in which he had been philosophically educated. Furthermore, one might charitably suggest that many of the extraordinary
etymologies of German and Greek words he proposed in his later writings represent a deliberate attempt to shock the reader into a
realization of the absolute primacy of language and to encourage him or her to attempt to break through its limitations and distortions to
discover Being itself. (His 'hero' Hlderlin provides a precedent for this.)
(3) These two criticisms lead on to a third: that Heidegger's espousal of the 'hermeneutic circle' commits him to a 'relativist' and
antirealist position. Certainly, there are real difficulties for such notions as belief and truth which, together with all 'interpretations',
necessarily operate within the 'circle'. But arguably it is mistaken to think of him as an antirealist in any strong sense (such as would be
more appropriately applied to, say, Derrida and other 'post-structuralists'). Being for Heidegger can be 'grasped', albeit through
Dasein's practical engagement with the world; and while there is a plurality of possible 'frameworks' through which this engagement can
be articulated, it is the same 'reality' which is being meaningfully revealed. Heidegger might then be more accurately described as a
'weak realist'. However this remains a contentious issue.
.So, notwithstanding the seeming impenetrability of Heidegger's writings, they should be studied as far as possible with an open mind;
the problems he grappled with throughout his life are genuine philosophical aporiai, and how he sought to solve them should be taken
seriously even if we come to a considered conclusion that he was radically mistaken, his solutions untenable.
CARNAP
(1891 1970)
METHODOLOGY/ EPISTEMOLOGY
[4] Carnap set out [Logical Construction of the World] to construct a constitution system which would accommodate all knowable
objects. He called this 'methodological solipsism'. He started from the concept ofreducibility. By means of 'constitutional definitions' or
rules concepts can be reduced to sets of 'basic' concepts [a] provided the first concepts can be transformed into sentences containing
the sets. The constitution system consists of all the definitions and theorems arranged hierarchically.
Starting with 'private-psychical' (eigenpsychische) experiences Carnap selected as basic the relation of 'remembered symmetry' and
sought to construct successively the classes of quality, sense and sensation in the sensory field . Thus 'red' is definable in the class of
similars which have a location in a five dimensional system. His intention was that such a constitutional system should in due course
take in more complex objects physical objects, other minds, and cultural objects. However, he allowed that it might be possible to
construct a system on a wider 'physicalist' basis and which would make use of the language of' 'realism' (provided we do not accord
private experiences' epistemological primacy').
This approach presented Carnap with two difficulties: (1) how private experiences can be he foundation for the public inter-verfiable
sentences of science; (2) whether a 'phenomenalistic' language or a 'physicalist' language is to be preferred for the articulation of the
basic 'protocol' or report sentences of science. To deal with these he moved some way from his generally positivist position and accepted
that all of science (including the social or human sciences) could now be built on a physicalist basis utilizing preferably an
intersubjective physicalist language into which all empirical statements (the phenomenalist language), equivalent to protocol sentences,
could be expressed ['The Unity of Science'] [b].
Modifications to the concept of reducibility, particularly in relation to 'disposition' terms, then led Carnap to distinguish
between definitions of scientific concepts in terms of protocol statements (whichever 'language' they might be expressed in) and
reduction. Similarly he came to accept that scientific hypotheses could not be verified, only confirmed or tested. His final view therefore
was that scientific concepts should be reducible to rather than definable in terms of observables; and that scientific sentences should be
understood as admitting of confirmation by reference to observations instead of being translated into sentences about observables [c].
[5] Probability. In his account of probability Carnap attempted to reconcile different positions as he had done in his treatment of
mathematics. He distinguished between probability1 (confirmation probability) and probability2 (relative frequency probability) and says
that they should be clearly separated ['Two Concepts of Probability'; Logical Foundations of Probability] [a]. The first is a (non-
deductive) logical relation, while the second belongs to the province of statistics, involving relations between classes of events. Often
what appears to be relative frequency may in fact be a statement about a logical relation between evidence and conclusion. Now, the
methods for assessing the degree of 'confirmability' belong to the foundations of inductive logic. And Carnap interpreted inductive logic
as parallel to deductive logic in that the methods of testing for the degree of confirmation of a hypothesis on the basis of some evidence
are comparable to the rules for deriving a conclusion from premisses or theorems from axioms . He suggested there is a common feature
of rationality [b] in so far as both procedures involve a recognition of meanings of sentences and of, respectively, logical implication and
the definition of 'degree of confirmation'.
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Carnap is perhaps both the most representative and the least dogmatic of the logical positivists. His philosophy is complex and wide-
ranging, his arguments and their implications being worked out in great detail. In so far as his thought was constantly undergoing
development and modification in the light of criticism a summary is best presented in general rather than specific terms. He offers an
'extensional' constructionist system grounded in experience. In the early stages of his thought he was concerned largely with syntax and
the primacy of phenomenal language but subsequently came to emphasize a physicalist language and semantics. He is important for the
distinctions he made between language and metalanguage, the 'formal' and the 'material' mode, and 'internal' and 'external' questions, for
his view that philosophical problems can be resolved by means of a logical analysis of language, and for his contributions to probability
theory. Some of the main criticisms which can be made of his philosophy are the following.
(1) At the level of 'protocol' sentences, which are about supposedly incorrigible observation reports, he would seem to be committed to
some form of correspondence theory of truth. Some critics, however, have questioned whether Tarski's semantic theory of truth is a
genuine correspondence theory in that his formal definition of truth seems to have no application to natural languages [compare
also Davidson]. It might therefore be argued that there is a tension here in Carnap's philosophy. It seems also that there is a tacit appeal
to coherence as a test of truth for sentences other than protocol sentences (a sentence being true by virtue of its relations to other
sentences). Furthermore, his principle of tolerance and acceptance of different conceptual schemes would appear to introduce both
pragmatic and relativist features. Against all this it could be said that it is a strength rather than a weakness that these different positions
are accommodated within his philosophy of language and his epistemology.
(2) The central feature of the positivist/ empiricist programme the reduction or assimilation of one mode of discourse to the scientific
has been criticized particularly by 'ordinary language' analytic philosophers, who claim that this programme cannot succeed.
(3) These philosophers have also questioned the tenability of Carnap's view that linguistic expressions 'designate' entities (extensional
and intensional) the existence of which seems to be a matter of which conceptual scheme is adopted. The supposition in his later writings
that entities have a 'Platonic' existence must also contend with 'nominalist' objections.
GADAMER
(1900 2002)
'PHILOSOPHICAL' HERMENEUTICS
Hans-Georg Gadamer was born in 1900, the son of a chemistry professor, and studied at the universities of Breslau, Marburg, Freiburg,
and Munich. He later undertook post-doctoral work as Heidegger's assistant at Marburg, and became professor there in 1937. During
World War II he was a reluctant 'fellow-traveller' with the Hitler regime and taught at Leipzig from 1938 until 1947 when he took up a
Chair at Frankfurt. He moved to Heidelberg in 1949 and retired in 1968 although he continued to teach in Germany and in America.
Influenced especially by Heidegger he moved beyond the 'methodological hermeneutics' of Schleiermacher and Dilthey and is now
recognised as the major hermeneutic philosopher of the twentieth century. His principal work Truth and Method raises important issues
concerning truth, rationality, authority, and language.
HERMENEUTICS
[1] Hermeneutics for Gadamer is more than simply a set of techniques for interpreting texts. It is concerned with the deeper issue of how
human understanding (Verstehen) is possible. And as such it is a practical as well as a theoretical enterprise, akin to Aristotle's concept
of phronesis or practical deliberation to be identified with neither episteme nor techne. While it is a teaching about a technical skill it
is also concerned with the relevance of this to "the distinctively human trait of having proairesis [free choice, purpose]" ['Hermeneutics
as Practical Philosophy'; cf. Truth and Method, Pt 2, II, 2 (b)] and with the individual's quest for excellence as manifested in 'cultivation'
(Bildung ) in the community [ibid., Pt 1, I, 1 (b) (i)] [a].
According to Gadamer, there is no absolute 'objective' interpretation of a text, work or art, or indeed a whole culture, to be discovered by
some Enlightenment form of reason, through empathetic insight into the author's intentions, or by some process of cultural
reconstruction. At the same time he rejects both individual rigid relativism and any transcendentally subjective verification whereby the
insights of each individual or group are supposedly guaranteed equal validity or authenticity [b]. This becomes clear in the course of his
exposition in Truth and Method. He firstly investigates art and the aesthetic dimension [Pt I] and then goes on to examine the historical
sciences [Pt II, I]; for it is through modes of experiencing, he says, that we come to understand our own existence. The Romantic and
Idealist traditions, however, have presented us with forms of consciousness which alienate our true being. Emphasis on aesthetic
experience as such results in a work of art becoming abstracted from the world as a 'pure' artwork by means of a process of what
Gadamer calls 'aesthetic differentiation'. His aim therefore is to show that the primordial experiences transmitted through history and art
cannot be grasped from the point of view of these forms of consciousness. Understanding the truth of aesthetic experience belongs to the
encounter with the work of art itself [Pt I, I, 3 (b)]. Works of art do indeed disclose the 'truth' of reality, but only, as it were, as
appearance a realization as it exists only in the content of the work of art itself (he thus rejects the notion of 'mirroring'): "...reality is
defined as what is untransformed, and art as the raising up of this reality into its truth" [Pt I, II, 1(b)]. He is critical of subjectivist
theories of art and affirms that aesthetic experience is a form of knowledge: "What one experiences in a work of art and what one is
directed towards is rather how true it is, i.e., to what extent one knows and recognises something and oneself" [ ibid.] In mimetic art
imitation and representation are thus not merely a copy but a recognition of the essence. Moreover, he says, because they are not merely
repetition but a "bringing forth", the spectator is also involved in them. This is particularly clear in Gadamer's discussion of tragic drama.
In witnessing the consequences which flow from a guilty deed (in the Antigone) "the spectator recognises himself and his own finiteness
in the face of the power of fate" [Pt I, II, 1(d)]. The events become a reality for him through which he is 'purified' in the sense of being
transformed by the tragedy [c]. However, he goes on to argue that in art and history there are no pure starting-points free of
presuppositions. Rather we find ourselves in a world in a particular place and time, born into a given society, influenced even by the
landscape; we possess our own thoughts and moods, engage in our own activities. He refers to this as 'effective historical
consciousness' (Wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewusstsein) [Pt 2, II, 1 (b) (iv)], reflecting the fact that, whether as authors of texts, readers,
or interpreters, we are grounded in historicity of the communal, genuinely intersubjective 'life-world', within which all our thinking
occurs; and he sees us as being thereby constrained by the prejudices of our cultural contexts [d]. 'Pre-judice' is here understood not in
its common pejorative sense but as referring to the assumptions or traditions that we necessarily inherit by virtue of belonging to a
particular culture in a particular place at a particular time. This limitation is implicit in his use of the term 'horizon'.
[2] Although we are limited in our horizons, Gadamer argues that the limits can be transcended to the extent that we can open
ourselves up to the discourse and cultural traditions of others; and in this way greater understanding can be achieved. What makes this
possible for Gadamer is language which plays a central role in his hermeneutics [Pt III]. He sees language as the medium in which we
operate, through which we understand. But we cannot transcend or extricate ourselves from language to come into to direct contact with
the 'reality' that language is in some sense about. The nature of human experience is essentially linguistic; Gadamer refers to this as
'linguality' (Sprachlichkeit). It is literally more correct, he states, to say that "language speaks us, rather than we speak it" [Pt III, 3
(b)] [a]. He does not seek to get behind a text but thinks it is possible to 'recreate' partially the 'ideal' meaning which he thinks is
embedded in or implicit in the text itself which may well pass beyond what was intended by the author and thus beyond the author's
horizons. Interpretation has to be 'applied' in circumstances that may not have obtained when work or text was first created. He takes up
the idea of a dialogue but for him it is a dialogue between interpreter and text, painting, or other cultural product. Through this dialogue
the interpreter both separates the text from its horizons (the author's personal experiences, cultural context of the work) and transcends
his own horizons. Gadamer argues that as the dialogue progresses a 'fusion of horizons' (Horizontverschmelzung) between author, text,
and interpreter can be achieved and approximation to the ideal meaning attained [Pt 2, II, 1 (b) (iv)] [b].Moreover, while our effective
history necessarily prevents us from overcoming our prejudices, yet because an effective history constitutes those prejudices we bring to
understanding it is only through them that we can approach our horizons. Prejudice is thus seen as a precondition for understanding: we
must first be 'distanciated' from the text or culture if we are to interpret it [c]. The progressive dialogue leading to fusion of horizons is
essentially dialectical in nature. But Gadamer's dialectic, which facilitates openness and transcendence, remains within language. He
rejects any dialectic of Spirit which purports to be working itself out in and through consciousness and the world and culminating in an
Absolute or total self-realization [d]. The 'meaning' or truth of the text should not therefore be understood in either rationalist or
speculative idealist terms.
Hermeneutics is characterized by a 'forward-backward' movement which operates within the 'hermeneutical circle' [Pt 2, II, 1 (a) (i) and
(b) (iii)]. For Gadamer this is a circle of whole and part: parts give us a sense of the whole, and to understand the significance of the
parts we need to have an apprehension of the whole (just as we might come to understand the relationship between the chapters of a
book and the book as a whole). But the whole is never fully realizable in terms of parts there is no 'ultimate' truth [e]: we are offered
only new fusions, new insights, achieved only within the constraints of history and effective historical consciousness, and the 'resistance'
of text. It is essentially on on-going adventure; and Gadamer claims that to the extent that it is successful it will bring about a growth in
inner awareness, self-understanding, and an understanding of the human condition.
[3] Hermeneutics is applicable not only to the human sciences but also to the natural sciences [see Foreword to 2 nd edn]. But Gadamer
makes it clear that he is not seeking to question the methodology or functions of empirical sciences within their own terms of reference,
or even that they may be employed in the social sciences. The natural sciences may well aspire to certainty, but they have their limits in
that here too our culturally related assumptions, prejudices, and distortions cannot be eliminated. On the other hand, although the human
sciences differ from the natural sciences in their methodology this does not exclude them from offering access to truth . Gadamer's point
is that both natural and human sciences are subordinate to hermeneutic categories: both kinds of enterprise must be open to interpretation
and understanding which is fundamental to what it is to be human [a]. His concern therefore is to pose the question 'How is
understanding possible?' to the totality of human experience of the world and our conduct of life.
CRITICAL SUMMARY
The significance of Gadamer lies in his expansion of the concept of hermeneutics. His achievement is essentially to have linked together
the traditional areas 'understanding', 'interpretation' and 'application' and to have shown their interdependence in a wider theory of
understanding. His work has had a major influence on contemporary philosophy and literary theory. His principal work Truth and
Method has also raised important issues concerning truth, rationality, and authority, and language.
Unlike the hermeneutic philosophers of German Romanticism, Gadamer denies that an 'objective' understanding of texts, art, history,
culture can be achieved. However, his anti-positivistic methodology allows for a conditioned understanding that he claims avoids
relativism and subjectivism. This understanding is achieved through a 'fusion of horizons' arising from 'dialogue' and the search for
consensus. Personal and cultural 'pre-judices' and presuppositions cannot be transcended: indeed they are considered as essential aids for
the acquisition of knowledge, the cultivation of reason, and human development. His approach to the question of the 'meaning' or 'truth'
of a text is perhaps best understood as Aristotelian rather than Platonic though this is contentious.
The main criticisms of his philosophy have arisen largely in the context of his debate with Habermas .
(1) It is argued that Gadamer ignores or underestimates the possibility of coercion of the free discourse required for consensus he is
too ready to submit to the 'authority' of tradition' [a]; and he is mistaken in supposing 'pre-judice' to be non-eliminable. His hermeneutics
is supposedly limited in this respect, because it appeals to a linguistic idealism. It lacks a "reference system", a comprehensive view of
society. Gadamer, however, denies this and argue that extra-linguistic factors do in due course enter into the system.
(2) It is also claimed that he does not allow sufficiently for 'causal' factors and the distortions (perhaps originating from the unconscious)
in proposed reasons and intentions.
(3) More centrally, perhaps, his criterion for genuine understanding after 'dialogue' is essentially practical. It is not clear how self-
development and the cultivation of reason are to be measured, or, given ideological distortion, how consensus is to be assessed. There is
thus no clear indication of a role for reason as such.
These criticisms should of course be understood in the context of Habermas's own position. Nevertheless it is clear that the issue of truth
is central to the debate concerning the acceptability of Gadamerian hermeneutics. Gadamer has been interpreted by some commentators
as being an 'antirealist'. But while it is the case that for him we cannot transcend the language through which we articulate our
interpretations of texts or cultural behaviour in general, it is arguable that he is not denying that what we say in language is in some sense
about the 'world'. Rather, he is repudiating the possibility of any ultimate 'objective' revelation. The 'fusion of horizons' may be on-going,
perhaps even asymptotic (though this raises the question of how progress might be measured), but such fusions are more appropriately
still to be regarded as relative. Perhaps therefore Gadamer should be considered a 'weak' realist'.
RYLE
(1900 1976)
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Ryle is notable for two interconnected contributions to philosophy:
(l) The thesis that philosophical errors may arise as a result of the misleading grammar of informal or 'ordinary' language, especially
when we use words belonging to one category as if they belonged to another. He sees it as the philosopher's function to detect and rectify
such philosophical mistakes.
(2) In the philosophy of mind, his rejection of Cartesian-type theories in favour of the view that so-called 'inner' mental life should be
understood in terms of sets of dispositional statements about publicly observable behaviour.
Against these theses many criticisms have been made.
(1) It might be said that category mistakes are mistakes only on the assumption that at least some concepts belong to certain well-defined
categories. This raises the question whether these categories pertain to or reflect the actual structure of the world (realism), or whether
they are in some sense relativistic and pragmatic and therefore contingent on our needs and purposes. If the latter is the case, then the
notion of rectifying the logical geography of our concepts to avoid putative category mistakes becomes much more flexible than Ryle
would wish. As for the former, many philosophers of dualist persuasion would argue that, at least so far as mind-body problems are
concerned, there is no such category mistake. Others might question the paradigmatic primacy given to 'ordinary' language.
(2) On the specific issue of mind, it is a matter of debate whether Ryle's position should be described as 'behaviourist'. Nevertheless it
seems that it is his primary aim to present an account of our talk about 'mental' life in at least quasi-behaviourist terms. It is, however,
questionable whether our thinking, perceiving, imagining, and so on can be eliminated or by-passed in this way. At the same time Ryle's
achievement his powerful arguments against the Cartesian substance dualistic model should not be underestimated.
POPPER
(1902 1994)
CRITICAL EMPIRICISM
Karl Popper was born in Vienna, where his father was a lawyer, writer, and social reformer. He left home and school at the age of sixteen
and enrolled in the University. After a few years as a trainee cabinet-maker and then as a social worker he studied to become a
schoolteacher. While in Vienna he was in close touch with some of the members of the 'Vienna Circle' of logical positivists, though he
was not a positivist himself. After the publication in 1934 of his Logik der Forschung (Logic of Scientific Discovery) he was invited to
England, where he met many of the leading philosophers and lectured at the London School of Economics. He was appointed to a senior
lectureship in philosophy at Canterbury University College, New Zealand in 1937, and in 1945 he accepted a readership at the L.S.E.,
becoming professor of logic and scientific method in 1949. He was knighted in 1965, and was also elected a Fellow of the British
Academy and made a Companion of Honour.
METHODOLOGY
[1] [The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959 English edn); Conjectures and Refutations, 3rd edn.] According to the 'traditional' view of
scientific method the scientist devises experiments to provide him with measured observations. He then formulates explanatory
hypotheses and attempts to confirm them by finding appropriate supporting evidence. It seems then that, while the scientific laws which
this inductive procedure give rise to may be highly probable, they are not certain. Most working scientists are presumably happy enough
with this view. However, Popper argues that this account of methodology is erroneous and he proposes an alternative. We can never
conclusively establish the truth of a general statement such as 'All swans are white'; there will always be observations that have not yet
been made. But we need only one disconfirming instance, namely, 'This swan is black', which will be sufficient to falsify a scientific
law. Scientific methodology thus involves falsification procedures and not confirming ones; and is essentially deductive. (He therefore
in effect dismisses the so-called problem of induction) [LSD, ch. I, 6; ch. IV] [a]. He argues that what the scientist should do is to set up
general statements as 'conjectures' that can be refuted by counter-instances or modified to take account of special circumstances [CR, ch.
1]. Take, for example, the statement that water boils at 100C at sea level. From this a richer hypothesis enables us to explain the
connection between the boiling point of water and atmospheric pressure, and this in turn can be subjected to further attempts at refutation
and modification.
The postulation of hypotheses in general is for Popper an exercise of the critical imagination. To the extent that they have withstood
testing procedures they are said to be 'corroborated' and merge into theories, though they can never be established conclusively. But
Popper says that in the course of time and through successive modifications theories may be said to correspond with increasing
approximation to the truth. He in fact uses the term 'verisimilitude', which he defines by reference to the 'content', that is, the set of
logical consequences of a theory [CR, ch. 10, sec. 3; also Addenda 3]. And building on Tarski's semantic theory of truth [see CR, ch. 10,
sec. 2; also Objective Knowledge, ch. 9] (which Popper believes can be extended to natural languages) he argues in favour of a theory of
objective truth and correspondence to facts [b]. A theory t2, he says, has greater verisimilitude than theory t 1, if the truth-content of t 2 but
not the falsity-content is greater than that of t 1, or if the falsity-content of t1, but not its truth-content is greater than that of t 2. Popper
stresses that corroboration and verisimilitude are not to be understood in terms of the probability that a hypothesis or theory is true.
Indeed there is a problem in that probability statements seem not to admit of refutation. He therefore modified the relative frequency
theory by introducing the notion of a 'condensation limit' as a limit of frequencies within a finite class so that the deviations of future
frequencies from this 'limit' might be measurable. Later, however, he moved away from the statistical account to adopt an 'objective
propensity' theory [c] which supposes probability statements to be about the properties of experimental conditions. [See CR, ch. 1,
Appendix.]
The emphasis on falsifiability as opposed to verifiability is important not only because it lies at the heart of Popper's account of scientific
methodology but also because it provides him with what he calls the criterion of demarcation, which enables him to distinguish
genuine from pseudo-science. [CR, ch. 11]. Consider the statement 'It will rain sometime in the next million years'. This cannot be
falsified, and is to all intents and purposes certain; it has maximum probability. However, its 'information content' is virtually nil. This is
to be contrasted with, say, 'Rain will fall on the London at 2 pm tomorrow'. This statement has a high information content but is most
improbable and is easily falsified. It is also, Popper says, the simplest. It is thus an appropriately scientific statement. Highly probable
statements with low information content, which are accordingly not falsifiable, are on the other hand not genuinely scientific, since
nothing could ever count against them. Only hypotheses or theories which are open to rigorous testing procedures are genuinely
scientific. Metaphysical 'theories', Marxist 'laws', fundamental 'principles' of Freudian psychoanalysis, and the like, although
'meaningful' are not scientific [d]. Popper rejects the verification principle of meaning [CR, ch. 1, III] [e].
KNOWLEDGE
[2] It follows from Popper's account of scientific procedure that he does not accept the rationalist view that ultimate or complete
knowledge of the 'essences' of things can be achieved [CR, ch. 3, sec. 3]. This is not to deny the possibility of knowledge altogether;
and Popper rejects 'instrumentalist' theories of science [CR, ch. 3, secs 4 & 5], which consider such entities as atoms, genes, and so on as
merely convenient logical constructions. 'Micro' objects, the supposedly theoretical entities of science, can be regarded as real as
physical objects given that they are open to the same methodological testing procedures. It is not just a matter of convenience [a].
But he also rejects empiricist 'foundationalist' theories [CR, passim; especially Addenda 1], which seek to ground knowledge in
incontrovertible statements about supposedly basic entitites such as sense-data or 'impressions'. This is because no observations can be
'pure' or 'bare'; we always bring with us a framework of theory which guides us to the observations and has a role to play in determining
which 'facts' we should consider. Even in our earliest childhood we have 'expectations', albeit not consciously articulated (for example,
that we are to be fed). Such expectations, while psychologically or genetically prior to observational experience and are thus in a sense
the result of 'propensities', are not a priori valid and may be mistaken. Popper thus does not espouse a rationalist innatist theory in any
strict sense [b].
As we develop and become concerned increasingly with problem-solving, particularly the problem of survival, our expectations are
subjected to critical testing so that errors which militate against survival may be eliminated and new apparently successful modes of
behaviour developed. This forms the basis of Popper's 'evolutionary' epistemology [see Objective Knowledge] [c]. In the same way we
come to articulate our consciousness of the world through language, forming our concepts in the light of our expectations; we come into
contact with abstractions, myths, customs, religions, and later on genuine science, all of which are open to the critical procedure. These
structures come to constitute what Popper calls 'World 3' the totality of our inherited culture. They are produced by 'World 2' (the
world of minds) and are preserved in 'World 1' (human brains, books, films, monuments, and so on) [see especially OK, chs 3 & 4]. It is
World 3 that constitutes objective knowledge in the strict sense [d]. Individual, private, subjective dispositions or claims to know that
something is the case are always contentious until they have been subjected to testing, when they then pass, corroborated, into the public
and 'real' domain of World 3.
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Popper's philosophy is wide-ranging and is characterized by energy and vision, combined with analytical power. Popper rejected both the
'foundationalism' proposed by some logical positivist philosophers and the innate ideas of the rationalists. He rejected also the
assumptions of 'ordinary language' language philosophy considering it to be vague and trivial. Understandably he was sympathetic to
Russell and accepted that the kind of analysis Russell advocated has a role to play in problem solving. Not surprisingly, therefore,
Popper's influence has been felt more in political and social philosophy (and, through Gombrich, in aesthetics) than in other areas of
philosophy with the exception perhaps of the philosophy of science. The key features of his thought may be summarized as follows.
(1) He rejected the verification principle and theory of meaning. He also stressed falsification of theories in scientific methodology
instead of verification.
(2) He used falsifiability as a criterion of demarcation for distinguishing genuine science from what he regarded as spurious sciences
such as Marxism and Freudian psychoanalytical theory.
(3) He argued vigorously for openness of thought and for the 'open society' rejecting authoritarianism and theories of historical
inevitability.
(4) His distinction between three 'worlds', World 3 being 'objective' knowledge, is an important feature in his later 'evolutionary
epistemology'.
Many objections have been made against his claims.
(1) It has been said that in his general account of scientific explanation (a) he does not allow sufficiently for the possibility of anomalies
in experimental data; (b) he tends to concentrate on theories in isolation, whereas, it has been claimed (by philosophers appealing to a
'holistic' view of scientific methodology and knowledge acquisition), such theories cannot adequately provide testable predictions; (c) his
use of modus tollens arguments (p entails q; not-q; therefore not-p) could result in too ready a rejection of theories; (d) he underestimates
the role that inductive procedures can play in scientific methodology. It has also been suggested (e) that science does not develop in the
measured progressive 'evolutionary' manner implied by his account: he should have given more consideration to the way that paradigms
are overturned.
(2) On the specific issue of falsification, it has been argued that theories can always be protected from this by rejecting auxiliary
hypotheses or by changing one's assessment of probabilities. Indeed such moves may well be characteristic of scientific procedures,
contrary to Popper's claims. Moreover, demarcation may not be as clear cut as Popper seems to suggest. Probability is never zero; the
possibility that a given claim can be falsified can never be ruled out.
(3) In his explanation of 'verisimilitude' Popper talks of the degree of 'truth content' over 'falsity content'. But is there a test or criterion
for truth content at all in a falsificationist theory? In so far as he accepts a theory only so long as it has not been refuted, Popper (who,
contentiously, interprets Tarski's semantic theory of truth as one of correspondence) may yet be appealing to purely pragmatic
considerations. It is also unclear whether he is advocating an ideal towards which practising scientists should aspire or is providing an
actual description of the scientists' modus operandi.
(4) Understandably his social and political philosophy has been criticized by thinkers who have espoused historicist or inevitability
theories. This of course remains a matter of ongoing debate. However, even some philosophers who are broadly sympathetic to his
position have questioned his interpretation of Plato and Hegel as enemies of the open society [see 3d]. Whether this is a fair criticism is a
matter to be determined as much by Plato and Hegel scholars as by followers of Popper.
(5) The view that scientific method is applicable to both the natural and the human sciences [compare Hempel] is, to say the least,
questionable [see also Gadamer].
HEMPEL
(1905 1997)
LOGICAL EMPIRICISM
Born in Oranienburg, Germany Carl Hempel studied mathematics and physics at the Universities of Gttingen, Heidelberg, and Berlin,
where he gained his doctorate. He became a member of the logical positivist group there in 1934. After a short time researching in
Brussels he emigrated to the U.S.A. in 1937. He taught at Yale from 1948-55 when he was appointed to the professorship at Princeton.
he was also Fulbright Senior Research fellow at Oxford (1959/60) and a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioural
Sciences at Stanford (1963/4). After retirement he continued to teach at the Universities of California (Berkeley and Irvine) and
Jerusalem.
PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE
[1] While Hempel accepted the logical positivists' approach to the concept of meaning, he came to modify it in a number of
respects. Initially he suggested that statements are meaningful only if they can be translated into an empiricist language. But later he
allowed for degrees of meaningfulness between the extremes of significance and nonsense [a]. He also argued that meaning should
properly be located in language systems as a whole rather than in separate statements. He was thus committed to a coherence theory of
truth [b]. He recognised that there is a problem with theoretical terms utilized in the sciences in that they do not refer to entities which
can be observed, and he suggested that an 'interpretive system' consisting of both theoretical and observational terms might allow for a
partial interpretation which would produce consequences that could be tested empirically [c].
METHODOLOGY
[2] Hempel developed the 'covering-law' model of scientific explanation (that is, as applied to the natural sciences) and sought to extend
it to explanations in the social or human sciences [a]. According to the model an event (for example, the apparent bending of a stick
when placed in water) is explained when statements describing it are deduced from statements of antecedent conditions in conjunction
with general laws (which may in some cases be statistical and only probable), and which in turn are deducible from more widely ranging
laws. Thus we have the following pattern: (a) a set of statements, C 1, C2,... Ck, which describe particular facts; (b) L 1, L2,... Lr, which are
general laws; (c) the conclusion E, which describes the explanandum-event (a) and (b) jointly forming the explanans. This deductive
subsumption of the explanandum under principles which have the character of general laws Hempel calls a 'deductive-nomological'
explanation. He also identifies a second type, which is probabilistic and therefore inductive (for example, an explanation of the
occurrence and subsidence of a person's allergic attack) but he tries to show such explanations conform to the primary model and are still
nomological (that is, appertaining to laws), although not deductive
How is evidence of conditions obtained? What are 'general' laws grounded in? Why do we rely on them? This is in effect the problem of
induction: general laws are confirmed by their instances. Some philosophers of science have accepted a number of confirmation criteria:
(1) 'All As are B' is confirmed by any (A and B); (2) 'All As are B' is disconfirmed by an (A and not-B); (3) 'All As are B' is neither
confirmed nor disconfirmed by any non-A; (4) Whatever confirms one group in a set of logically equivalent hypotheses confirms the
others. However, it was claimed that holding these criteria in conjunction leads to paradox. To deal with this Hempel suggested that
condition (3) be rejected; and accordingly he allowed that anything other than an (A and non-B) would confirm 'All As are B'. Thus, for
example, since 'All ravens are black' is logically equivalent to 'All non-black things are non-ravens', it would seem to follow that
anything at all (a white swan, a black mouse) would confirm 'All ravens are black'. This is Hempel's paradox. What is at issue is how
instances would be regarded as relevant; and any formulation of the inductive principle should take account of this requirement [b].
As for the social and human sciences, Hempel discusses ["Explanation in Science and History"] two kinds of explanation supposedly
used by historians 'genetic' explanations and appeals to 'motivating reasons'. If we seek to explain why a particular historical
phenomenon occurred, or why someone performs a particular action, we seek to show that the phenomenon or action can be derived as a
conclusion from sets of relevant facts and well-established generalizations [c]. In cases of specific actions of an individual we have some
such pattern as this: (a) A was in a situation of type C; (b) B was disposed to act rationally; (c) any person who is disposed to act
rationally will, when in a situation of type C, invariably (with high probability) do X which, Hempel claims, conforms to the
probabilistic version of the covering-law model. Again he thinks of these patterns of explanation as nomological though they may be
combined with some straight description.
CRITICAL SUMMARY
While Hempel's approach to the concept of meaning arguably marks an advance on standard verificationist theories in that he would
appear to mediate between physicalist and operationalist, or instrumentalist theories, his appeal to observational data as the criterion of
significance (even in the context of 'partially interpreted' deductive systems) leaves him open to criticism. One reason in particular for
this is that many terms used in our discourse cannot easily be linked to such data. Indeed they would often seem to be used meaningfully
when it is not known whether properties designated by 'empirical' terms are, or even could be observed.
Hempel's main contribution to philosophy, however, probably lies in his work on methodology. But here too his attempt to apply
covering-law models to historical and genetic explanations and his paradox of confirmation have engendered a great deal of debate. In
relation to the former it can be argued, for example, that motivating reasons cannot be assimilated to causes in the way he requires; and
that the model cannot cope with exceptions without either emptying of all meaning the concept of general explanation, or treating human
behaviour as inevitable and completely predictable. As for the paradox of confirmation, some philosophers have responded by arguing
that statistically observations of black ravens, for example, (given that all ravens are black) have greater confirmation value than those of
non-ravens, say, white swans; and that background knowledge can increase probability. Another approach is to reject all attempts at
confirmation. 'All ravens are black' is to be accepted only to the extent that there has so far been no observation instance of a non-black
raven; and appeals to classes of non-ravens are irrelevant. Hempel's paradox, however, continues to cause puzzlement.
SARTRE
(1905 1980)
EXISTENTIAL PHENOMENOLOGY
His father having died at an early age, Jean-Paul Sartre was brought up by his grandparents. (Albert Schweitzer was a cousin.) He was
educated at the Lyce Henri IV in Paris, the Lyce in La Rochelle, and at the cole Normale Suprieure, gaining his agrgation in
Philosophy in 1929. He taught philosophy in various schools before becoming a research student (1933-5) in Berlin and at the University
of Freiburg. His novel La Nause was published in 1938. After a short time as a prisoner of war he resumed his teaching career. He was
active in the resistance movement while working on L'tre et le Nant.
ETHICS
[5] [Existentialism and Humanism.] In so far as, for Sartre, man is nothing else but what he makes of himself his philosophy can be
called 'subjectivist'. Sartre understands this to mean the individual subject is totally free and that this is definitive man cannot be
unfree. It follows from this that the entire responsibility for our existence is placed directly upon our own shoulders, and further that
when we make a choice between one course of action and another we thereby affirm the value of that which is chosen . This latter claim
is central to Sartre's ethics. He rejects as inauthentic actions which are undertaken in accordance with systems of externally imposed
values. To act is to endow our actions with value. To act in accordance with the dictates of a God, the doctrines of Christianity, or the
principles of philosophical systems is to be guilty of 'bad faith (mauvaise foi) or 'self-deception' [a]. [On 'bad faith' see also BN, Pt I, ch.
2.] In other words, to refuse to face up to what Sartre calls 'abandonment' (that is deciding one's being for oneself), to shy away from
one's total responsibility for one's actions, to hide behind externally defined values, or to invent some deterministic doctrine, is to deny
that freedom which is the very definition and condition of man: "Man is free, man is freedom". Sartre illustrates his doctrine [EH] by
telling the story of one of his pupils who (in 1940) cannot make up his mind whether he should go to England to fight for the Free
French or should stay at home to look after his mother While conventionally there are standards or criteria he might appeal to, in the last
analysis it is in his actual choice that he, as it were, gives his action value. Only thus can his choice be authentic. Furthermore, when we
make a decision and choose a course of action, says Sartre, we commit not only ourselves but humanity as a whole. In legislating for the
whole of mankind the individual man cannot escape from a sense of complete responsibility, and he consequently experiences 'anguish'.
Sartre attempts to provide support for his view when he says that the Cartesian cogito provides us with an absolute truth one's
immediate sense of oneself. However, he goes on to affirm that in the 'I think' is contained also knowledge of other people. The
discovery of oneself is also a revelation of the 'other' as a freedom which confronts mine and which cannot think or will without doing so
either for or against me. We find ourselves in a world of 'intersubjectivity'. Now what is characteristic of man is that he is 'self-
surpassing'. Although we find ourselves in different historical situations, we are all constrained by certain material, social, and political
limitations. These are 'objective', that is, they are met with and recognised everywhere, but in so far as they are lived they are 'subjective':
man freely determines himself and his existence in relation to them; and in this respect we can identify a common or universal purpose
self-realization. Free being, as existence choosing its essence, is identical with absolute being, which is at once temporarily localized
in history and universally intelligible. It is on this basis that Sartre feels justified in universalizing his commitment and commitment
obliges him to will the liberty of others at the same time [b]. Freedom, he says, is willed in community. However, he denies he is
adopting a Kantian position, not least because principles which are too abstract break down and we have to 'invent' our own rule or
authority because in concrete cases there are no criteria we can appeal to determine how best to act.
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Many professional philosophers, even in France, have often tended to think of Sartre as pass, outmoded. Perhaps it is largely due to his
often uncritical presentation of his ideas, his seeming lack of rigour in argument, and his over-reliance on prolix and metaphorical
language that has contributed to the negative neglect of his thought by most mainstream British and American philosophers. But his
appropriation of Husserl's methodology, and the use he made of seminal ideas of Hegel, Heidegger, and Marx are of significance, even if
(as some might argue) he was an eclectic synthesizer rather than an original thinker. Of the central features of Sartre's philosophy the
following should be mentioned:
(1) His emphasis on the primacy of existence over essence.
(2) His development of phenomenological techniques to reinterpret the Cartesian ego.
(3) The distinction between en soi and pour soi, and his recognition that being should be the object of intentionality.
(4) Intersubjectivity and other minds are understood in terms of feeling rather than analogically.
(5) His concept of 'bad faith' and (in his mature work) his rejection of external criteria for value. Each individual is held to be totally
responsible for making his own values as he 'makes' himself.
(6) The attempt to reconcile existentialism with Marxist ideology, and his view of man as an agent grounded in history.
All of these aspects of his thought have of course provoked a great deal of criticism. The following are some of the more important
objections.
(1) It has been claimed that 'existence before essence' is an empty notion, and that Sartre has failed to account adequately for genetic,
environmental, and unconscious restraints on humus action. However, it may be said that he recognised and attempted to come to terms
with these in his later political writings.
(2) He has a tendency to suppose that freedom is unlimited. But he does not satisfactorily resolve the conflict between the free agency of
the prereflective self and the objective 'for itself' governed by causality. In this context he has likewise not really overcome Cartesian
dualism. His account of the origins of consciousness also seems obscure.
(3) Sartre's account of value is in effect a radical 'situation ethics' [a] and is either incoherent or leads to the abnegation of all values, in
so far as all situations for action are unique. Moreover the subjectivity of his ethics is not readily reconcilable with his appeal to
universalizability.
(4) Despite the originality of his political writings, with their postulation of the conscious project or praxis and purposive activity, it is
arguable that the existential aspect has not been fully integrated with his acceptance of the material factors which motivate human
behaviour or with the dialectic of inevitability even allowing for his Hegelian modification of Marxism. It is also questionable
whether he has satisfactorily dealt with the methodological problem of how within a supposedly unified system of thought a scientific
mode of enquiry can simultaneously offer a dialectical comprehension of the human condition.
QUINE
(1908 2000)
PRAGMATISM
Willard Van Orman Quine was born in Akron, Ohio. He studied mathematics and philosophy at Oberlin College and gained his doctorate
at Harvard with a thesis on 'The Logic of Sequences', one of his supervisors being Whitehead. He spent some time studying
mathematical logic in Vienna, Prague (where he met Carnap), and Warsaw before returning to teach at Harvard in 1934. He was
appointed full professor and Senior Fellow there in 1948. He was Visiting Professor at Oxford in 1953-4 and Wolfson Lecturer in 1973-
4.
[1] On matters of existence and reality Quine argues that only those entities should be admitted for which strong and appropriate criteria
can be given [see Ontology sec. 2]. In the case of theoretical terms of language and logic he tends therefore to try to explain
intensional ideas (sense, meaning, propositions, identity, synonymy, analyticity, and the like) in terms of extensional ones (for example,
reference and truth) [a].Indeed his tendency is to dismiss such intensional notions altogether in so far as he considers any importation of
them into our theories as leading to circularity and obscurity. It is in the light of this attitude that we can understand (1) his treatment of
the analytic-synthetic distinction, and (2) what he calls 'regimentation' of our language.
The analytic-synthetic distinction. Quine calls this "the first dogma of empiricism" [see 'Two dogmas of empiricism']. Traditionally (at
least since Frege) a distinction has been made between logically necessary and logically contingent statements. The former are
('broadly') analytic, the latter synthetic. But this class of 'broadly' analytic statements can be subdivided into (a) logical truths and (b)
'narrowly' analytic statements these latter being always true by virtue of substitution on the basis of definitions, which in turn depend
on synonymy. Quine rejects this notion of narrow analyticity [b]. Consider these examples: (a) No unmarried man is married; (b) No
bachelor is married. The first is a logical truth and remains so whatever we may substitute for 'married' the logical particles ('no', 'is')
being unchanged. The second is not a logical truth but can be made into one by the substitution of a synonymous term (say, 'unmarried
man') for bachelor'. But then how are we to understand the intensional concept of synonymy? We cannot appeal to definitions, for (with
the exception of stipulative and nominal definitions) definition presupposes synonymy. Nor can we appeal to the idea of inter-
substitution without a change of truth-value in all contexts, because to say the truth of 'It is necessary that all bachelors are bachelors' is
unchanged by the substitution of 'unmarried man' is to reason in a circle; 'necessary' here means 'analytic'. Indeed, underlying Quine's
arguments here is a wider consideration: his dislike of what he calls the 'referential opacity' of modal contexts and quantification into
opaque contexts (examples of modal terms are 'necessary' and 'possible'). This can be illustrated by his argument in 'Reference and
Modality'. The substitution of the number of planets, (in the true statement 'The number of planets = 9') for '9' in the true statement '9 is
necessarily greater than 7' results in a false statement 'The number of planets is necessarily greater than 7'. Likewise the formal
rendering of '9 is necessarily greater than 7' as '(x)(x is necessarily greater than 7)' makes no sense unless we suppose objects to possess
properties essentially (de re necessity as against de dicto necessity) a position the nominalist Quine finds unacceptable. Indeed, he
regarded modal logic in general as being pseudo-logic [c].
He does nevertheless allow a minimal sense to synonymy and analyticity as defined in terms of observable sensory stimuli (behaviour
and dispositions). [See Word and Object.] Inter-subjective stimulus-synonymy is sameness of stimulus meaning for a given speaker;
while a sentence is stimulus-analytic if he would assent to it after every stimulation [d]. A socially stimulus-analytic sentence is then one
which is stimulus-analytic for nearly every speaker of the language, if not all. That there are these minimal allowable senses of the terms
is assumed in Quine's discussion of radical translation. By this he means the translation of the language of a previously unknown and
isolated tribe. This would have to start, he says, by considering sentences (rather than individual words) which relate directly to stimulus
conditions. To explain this he distinguishes between occasion sentences ('It hurts', 'His face is dirty') and standing sentences (for
example, 'Each year crocuses come out'). To assert the former we require stimuli each time we observe the relevant subject. But in the
case of the latter, once we have given our assent (having looked at the crocuses) we do not need to observe again. Now suppose we go to
this community whose language we do not understand and observe the circumstances in which a native says Gavagai in the presence of a
rabbit. To know whether he means rabbit, rabbithood, a particular segment of the rabbit, and so on, we need to frame 'analytical
hypotheses'. But because there can be more than one set of such hypotheses that fit the native's speech dispositions (that is, to respond to
the relevant stimuli) have no way of determining which is the right one. This is consistent with his general thesis that reference is
indeterminate in the sense that the facts of our linguistic behaviour can be mapped in a variety of ways. (And this is one reason why
senses cannot be admitted; for they fix references without regard to circumstances contrary to the flexibility of our linguistic
behaviour) [e]. Thus Quine posits his indeterminacy of translation thesis, from which he draws the conclusions (1) that any statement
can be regarded as true independently of empirical observation provided appropriate adjustments are made elsewhere in the
conceptual scheme to which the statement belongs; and (2) that therefore the traditional distinction between analytic and synthetic
statements cannot be sustained [f]. Conversely, for Quine, it is also the case that identity statements, for example, 'Hesperus is
Phosphorus' or 'Cicero is Tully', while true are not necessary truths, on the grounds that the discoveries of these identities are empirical
and that therefore the statements are contingent [g].
Regimentation of language ['On what there is']. If identity conditions stated in intensional terms are unclear or inadequate, as Quine
claims, then how are we to deal with abstract entities? His solution is to eliminate them from our discourse. He not only replaces all
proper names by definite descriptions, but also goes on to eliminate all other singular terms (pronouns, demonstratives, and the like),
replacing them by logical devices such as quantifiers, variables, and identity [h]. Thus 'Socrates' in 'Socrates was Greek' becomes 'The x
which socratizes'; and 'Socrates was Greek' turns into 'There is just one x which socratizes, and whatever socratizes was Greek'. In
logical symbolism: G(x)Fx) = df. (x)(Fx &(y)(Fy y = x) &Gx) (where 'F' stands for 'socratizes') and 'G' stands for 'Greek'.
This regimentation and reconstruction of natural language from within (essentially to 'improve' it), through the application of the
techniques of formal logic [i], has important implications for Quine's ontology and his theory of knowledge.
METAPHYSICS/ONTOLOGY
[2] According to Quine, "to be is to be the value of a variable" ['On what there is']. By this he meant that as a consequence of
regimentation and the eliminability of abstract entities the question of what actually exists in the world becomes the question what
satisfies the quantified variables. It is these, he says, which carry 'ontic commitment'. Furthermore we can choose how far to go with
elimination according to the things that need to be done in philosophy. In his early work his philosophy tended to be characterized by a
preference for concrete, physical objects over 'abstract' entities as 'unactualized possibilities'. We can do without abstract objects if their
jobs can be performed without obscurity by, say, sense-data, physical objects, and classes. (Likewise to explain human action we can, if
we wish, eliminate references to 'purposes' or 'intentions'; while the resolution of conditional statements into statements about
dispositions also enables us to do without modal operators. Dispositional statements are then to be understood in terms of statements
about the physical objects to which the dispositions are attributable.) Nevertheless he finds room for mathematical 'entities'; and [from
'Two dogmas of empiricism' onwards] he shows increasing tolerance of abstract entities in general if they can be seen to have a useful
role to play [a]. The ideas required by science, for example, are regarded as real as any physical entity. And he eventually came to reject
his earlier acceptance of phenomenalistic conceptual schemes.
Regimentation, together with Quine's views on the indeterminacy of translation, leads further to his concept of ontological relativity. If
there are different sets of analytical hypotheses to account for the matching of any one language with another, it must follow that there
can be different theories and conceptual schemes consistent with the empirical evidence in a given context [b]. We cannot therefore say
that the 'real' world will be represented correctly by one particular conceptual scheme. Indeed, to compare different schemes presupposes
a theoretical background which itself may be but one of many, alternatives.
Quine's ontology is thus hierarchical and allows what he calls 'semantic ascent'. By this means the move away from talk about putative
objects or ideas to talk about the very language we use for the purpose. As philosophers we may well start out front everyday or
'ordinary' language, but we can revise and restructure it, dispensing with certain concepts to suit our explanatory needs ; and we can
thereby move 'up' through the hierarchy of languages [c] from the 'everyday' way of looking at things, through natural sciences, to
mathematics and logic, and finally ontology depending on how much generality and abstraction we are prepared to allow.
THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
[3] A second 'dogma' of empiricism rejected by Quine is the reductionist view espoused by some logical positivists that meaningful
statements can be translated into logical constructs out of terms which refer to immediate sensory experience, and which are taken to
constitute verification of synthetic statements. Indeed the second dogma, he thinks, is basically identical to the first. The idea that any
given true statement in isolation consists of a linguistic component and an extra-linguistic factual component is nonsense. (Analytic
statements are limiting cases which have no factual component and are confirmed vacuously.) Our statements about the world can be
confirmed or invalidated only 'holistically, as a "corporate body" [a]. As he says,
The totality of our knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic
physics or even of pure mathematics and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges ['Two
dogmas of empiricism'].
For Quine epistemology is to be naturalized, as a consequence of which many traditional philosophical issues may appeal to scientific
facts and empirical explanations. There is thus no clear distinction between knowledge, science, and philosophy. At all levels of the
semantic ascent what we can be said to know must depend on what entities we have chosen to admit into our conceptual schemes.
Philosophy is simply more general [b]. Nevertheless, although he thinks of physical objects not as defined in terms of experience but as
"irreducible posits" comparable epistemologically to the gods of Homer, he remains essentially an empirical physicalist. He regards the
conceptual scheme of 'science' (in its widest sense) as a tool for making predictions on the basis of past experience, and the postulation
of physical objects rather sense-data as a basis for successfully achieving a coherent and systematic structure out of our experience.
There is thus a strongly pragmatic flavour about his epistemology.
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Quine was probably one of the most important American philosophers of the twentieth century. Initially influenced by Carnap's logical
positivism he worked out over many years a comprehensive physicalist and pragmatic philosophy which combines vision with great
analytical power. Its most notable features include a sustained attempt to eliminate intensional terms in favour of extensional terms. This
can be seen in particular in his rejection of the analytic-synthetic distinction. His dislike of 'referential opacity' led him also to attack
efforts to formalize modal terms, which he saw as requiring acceptance of de re essentialism. Quine made radical use of Russell's logical
techniques to achieve 'regimentation' of ordinary language; and he regarded quantified variables as carrying ontological commitment'. In
his later work he advocated an appeal to socially observable stimuli as the basis of his physicalism and account of meaning. And in his
holistic ontology, implicit in a modifiable hierarchical 'semantic ascent', he made no clear distinction between science and philosophy.
As might be expected, criticism of Quine's work comes primarily from 'linguistic' philosophers (whether of the 'informal' or 'systematic'
varieties). Formal objections have been made of the viability of claims to eliminate linguistic terms and of his alleged obscuring of the
distinction between formal and informal logic. Many critics would say that Quine's attack on the analytic-synthetic distinction, powerful
though it may be, has failed; and that intensional terms have a legitimate function in everyday discourse; no circularity is involved if
they are accepted as interdependent. It is said also that he exaggerates the difficulties of intertranslatability; sufficient clarity can be
achieved in normal discourse and ambiguities avoided. Indeed it is questionable whether Quine's concerns about this issue are consistent
with his appeal to, in effect, a common pool of socially observable stimuli and with his attribution to language of an informational role.
Another serious objection is perhaps that it is arbitrary and presumptious to suppose that ontology is governable by what one chooses to
eliminate by logical techniques. Moreover, Quine himself seems to equivocate about his belief in the existence of abstract entities. Do
they 'really' exist? Or is it just a matter of ontic commitment determined by what is 'useful'?
MERLEAU-PONTY
(1908 1961)
PHENOMENOLOGY
Maurice Merleau-Ponty was born in Rochefort-sur-Mer. Educated at lyces there and at the cole Normale Suprieure in Paris, he
gained his agrgation in 1931. He taught in various lyces and at the cole Normale. After war service he was appointed a professor at
the University of Lyon and then became Professor of Child Psychology at the Sorbonne. He accepted the Chair of Philosophy at the
Collge de France in 1952. He was a founder and co-editor with Sartre of Les Temps Modernes.
ONTOLOGY
[4] Merleau-Ponty's critique of dualism is taken further in his last writings in the context of what he calls his 'ontology of flesh'. [See
especially Eye and Mind and The Visible and the Invisible.] His ontology may be described as a 'dialectical monism' in so far as he
rejects the dualistic analyses of Being into a pure free consciousness of the 'self' and the determinism or necessitation of the 'other' and
argues in favour of a mutual 'intertwining' (chiasme) of the lived body-subject and the world. (He here draws on the notion of reciprocity
implicit in his phenomenology of perception.) Being is both the silent, invisible ground of Nature and the visibility revealed through
it [a]. Being made visible constitutes what Merleau-Ponty calls "the flesh [chair] of the world". Flesh is the element of Being which
precedes and grounds the self and the other. It is the "anonymous visibility" neither material nor spiritual, nor substantial. Rather it is
"a sort of incarnate principle that brings a style of being wherever there is a fragment of being" [ V&I]. Man, as himself grounded in
Nature (he is not just a body-subject related to a specific historical-cultural situation), is a moment of instantiation of Being's self-
revelation. Thus grounded man is perceptible. But as revealer of Being, able to render visible the 'perceptible structures' of the world, he
is also the perceiver and contributes to its meaning. "One can say that we perceive the things themselves, that we are the world that
thinks itself or that the world is at the heart of our flesh" [ibid.]. Being as made visible is thus both that which "gives to us" and that
which we give to it [b].
LANGUAGE
[5] [See Phenomenology of Perception, Pt I, 6; also Consciousness and the Acquisition of Language; and Signs.] Following from his
rejection of dualism Merleau-Ponty argues that thought is inseparable from language. He denies that we can have concepts 'in the mind'
before they are expressed or articulated linguistically. New concepts are worked out in or through new expressions which he calls
collectively 'speaking word'; and he regards this process as the creative manifestation of the body-subject. Such expressions in due
course add to the corpus of social and public language the 'spoken word'. However, just as he allows for the conferring of meaning at
a 'pre-conscious' level so he attributes to the body a pre-linguistic understanding, a 'praktognosia' of its world though this is an aspect
of and inseparable from the body's behaviour[PP, Pt. I, 3] [a]. Thought is to the body's subjectivity as language is to its 'objective'
corporality, the two dimensions constituting one reality. He also recognises that his concept of the body-subject is difficult to articulate in
so far as our language has built into it a bias towards dualism. We must therefore struggle to create a new language in order to express
this central concept [b]. He later [CAL] draws on the structuralist view that the meaning and usage of language has to be grasped
synchronically by reference to the relationship between signs and not diachronically by reference to the history of linguistic
development; and he sees in this evidence or support for his own claim that the body-subject is involved in a lived relation with the
world, because language here and now is, as it were, the living present in speech . Merleau-Ponty's emphasis is thus on parole, that is the
'signified' meaning which is 'enacted', as opposed to 'langue' which refers to the total structure of 'signs' [c] the meanings and
words which parole, as a set of individual speech-acts (be they English, Chinese, or any other language), instantiates.
It is through language and its intersubjectivity that the intentionality of the body-subject makes sense of the world. And he makes it clear
that language is to be understood in a wide sense as including all 'signs', employed not only in literature but also in art, science, indeed in
the cultural dimension as a whole. Indeed the significance of a created work lies in this intersubjectivity in the reader's or viewer's 're-
creation' of it as well as in the work itself as originally created by the writer or artist. Moreover, in an era when science is increasingly
alienating man from the real, language and the arts in particular are particularly suited to be the means for this revelation. Through the
lived experience in which language is articulated in our actions, art, literature, and so on (that is, in 'beings' as signifiers) it opens
up to the Being of all things [see The Visible and the Invisible]. Contemplated against the 'background of silence', language then comes
to be seen as a 'witness to Being' [Signs] [d].
CRITICAL SUMMARY
For many years Merleau-Ponty's writings were undeservedly neglected outside France. More recently, however, his merits as a
philosopher have been increasingly recognised not least by many philosophers working in the 'analytic' tradition (despite the
complexity and prolixity of his style characteristic of much twentieth century continental philosophy). Of particular significance are
his rejection of both rationlism/ idealism and positivistic and reductionist empiricism, his concept of the 'body-subject' and a 'holistic'
account of perception and action as operating within the domain of intersubjectivity, and his dialectical 'ontology of flesh'. He accepted
Husserl's epoch and phenomenological reduction but argued that this leads not to a separated transcendental consciousness or ego but to
essences of 'lived experience'; and while emphasising the Cartesian primacy of the self he sought to overcome dualist theories (including
Sartre's sharp distinction between the pour-soi and the en soi) through an appeal to his doctrine of 'ambiguity', by which he understands a
theme or the meaning of a word as open to different interpretations, depending on the context, none of which should be regarded as
privileged [a]. He was also critical of attempts to reconcile existentialism and Marxism, arguing that a reworking of both is needed.
Merleau-Ponty was probably aware of most of the contentious issues raised by his thought, but owing to his untimely death he was
unable to complete a number of projects which most probably would have addressed these. Two points in particular should be
mentioned.
(1) (With reference to his early work) how transition from one structural level to another is to be effected has, arguably, not been fully
worked out. But many commentators would accept that his account of degrees of rationality and of freedom of the body-subject acting
within the constraints of causal determinism might prove to be more successful in resolving the seemingly intractable problem of
dualism while avoiding the difficulties of reductive naturalist theories.
(2) Some critics maintain that an unresolved tension remains between the extremes of a 'subjective' idealism and an 'objective' realism.
This might well be seen to be compounded by his later acceptance of a structuralist account of language, in so far as the distinction
between the lived experience of the subject and the described experience articulated through language (parole) and 'meanings' is itself
made within the linguistic framework. This would seem to prevent access to the objective world of the 'other'.
AYER
(1910 1989)
LOGICAL POSITIVISM/EMPIRICISM
The son of a French-Swiss timber merchant and a Dutch Jewish mother, Sir Alfred Ayer was educated at Eton (where he was a militant
atheist), Christ Church, Oxford, and at the University of Vienna. In Vienna he attended meetings run by Carnap and other logical
positivists. His espousal of this philosophy and his publication of Language, Truth and Logic in 1936 shook the conservative
establishment at Oxford, to which he had returned as lecturer at Christ Church three years earlier. After war service he became Dean of
Wadham College, Oxford and in 1946 was appointed Grote Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic at London University. In
1949 he was back again at Oxford as Wykeham Professorship of Logic and a Fellow of New College. He was elected Fellow of the
British Academy in 1952 and was knighted in 1970. He was President of the Humanist Association for six years, and was also an
enthusiastic football fan (Tottenham Hotspur).
KNOWLEDGE
[2] In his account of perception Ayer initially [Foundations of Empirical Knowledge and 'Phenomenalism'] promoted a theory of
linguistic phenomenalism. He argued that observation cannot help us to decide between 'realist' and 'sense-datum' theories. He saw it as a
question of 'convenience' whether we adopt the realist view that material objects can possess different colours at the same time or the
sense-datum view that they cannot. It comes down, in the last analysis, to a decision to use a technical 'sense-datum' language, into
which sentences about material objects can be translated, at least in principle [FEK, I] [a]. The sense-datum language, Ayer argues, is
best able to deal with the problem of illusion. He accepted, however, that the latter can never formally specify material objects precisely,
so that we cannot analyse statements about, say, a table into a set of statements about sense-data. [See Problem of Knowledge, ch. III, vi.]
Nevertheless the attempt to construct assertions about material objects out of empirical data is still legitimate.
In the Problem of Knowledge [ch. III, vii] Ayer also considered the issue of perceptual knowledge in the context of his examination
of justification in the face of sustained assaults by sceptics [ch. II]. In earlier writings [for example, Language, Truth and Logic, Introd;
and 'Basic Propositions'] he had supposed there to be 'basic propositions' (such as 'This looks to me to be red') which are 'incorrigible'.
He had already criticized the claims of the 'cogito' [LTL, II; see also PK, II, iii], but he also later came to reject the empiricists' claim to
incorrigibility [PK, II, vi; see also FEK, II, 8] and agreed that the sceptic is correct in denying that sense-datum statements are either
equivalent to or are a logically conclusive proof for material object statements. However, he says the former can be used for judging the
latter this constitutes 'justification'. Indeed, having knowledge as such was regarded by Ayer as having the right to be sure about one's
belief in the truth of a statement; and it is a matter of how strict we wish to make the criteria. But the logical possibility of error cannot
be ruled out. And this could occur even in one's own 'private language' [see 1g], for making mistakes in assessing one's experience need
not be the same as making mistakes in one's choice of the correct words to describe it. [See PK, chs 2, v; on sense-data see
also Metaphysics and Commonsense, 'A Reply to Austin', and CQP, ch. IV A.]
The notion of justification is discussed further in The Central Questions of Philosophy [ch. VIII C]. Here Ayer says that a belief is
justified if it accords with the available evidence, or is derivable from some wider generalization [b]. However, this raises the problem
whether it is sufficient that the propositions used to justify a belief are true. This would give us a criterion for justification, but it does not
require us to know that the criterion has been complied with. Is it therefore necessary that we should have a good reason to believe that
they are true? If so, we run the risk of an infinite regress. We can stop this only by making special rulings on the basis that there is
evidence of a given strength in its favour.
In Problem of Knowledge [ch. II, ix] and Central Questions [III E] Ayer identified three standpoints characterizable by their different
responses to the sceptic. (1) The naive realist denies there is a gap to be bridged between sense-impressions and physical objects: we
perceive such objects directly. (2) The reductionist (including early Ayer) accepts the sceptic's objections on this point but argues that
statements about physical objects are translatable into statements about sense-impressions. If the sceptic opposes this claim, it is open to
those who adopt a 'scientific' approach to argue (3) that the existence of physical objects is a probable hypothesis which one is justified
in accepting because of the way it accounts for our experience. Even if this claim is rejected, it can be argued that justification need not
be confined to either deductive or inductive procedures as the sceptic seems to suppose.
Ayer's later theory of perception [The Origins of Pragmatism] is based on a distinction between a realist theory of being, which gives
primacy to physical objects, and an 'empiricist-sensory' theory of knowledge he now refers to our experiences as 'qualia' [c]. Priority
in knowledge is thus no longer coincident with what is supposed to be prior in being. He argues further that out of the spatio-temporal
relations which are given to us directly in our sense-experience we can construct a system of physical space and time. The ontological
issue now is whether the realm of physical objects is best understood in terms of nave, commonsense 'realism' (tables and chairs, and
people) or of science (atoms and molecules, etc) [see 3c].
Ayer's general methodological approach is also apparent in his treatment of problems of the self, other minds, and memory. Earlier [LTL,
Introd. and ch. VII] he had argued for a theory that statements about other people's minds are translatable or 'constructible' into
statements about their bodies. However this leads to the problem that we must consistently regard statements about our own minds as
being equivalent to statement about our own bodies. Rejecting this behaviourist analysis Ayer therefore argues [ CQP, ch. VI E; see also
'One's Knowledge of Other Minds'] that the accounting for the behaviour of others by analogouslyattributing to them conscious
thoughts, sensations, emotions, purposes, like those I directly experience in myself, is a consequence of accepting a "whole body of
theory". One does not have to rely on inductivism [as he does in The Problem of Knowledge]. Similarly it is possible that my memories
and therefore statements about the past are mistaken. But notwithstanding the logical possibility that an occurrence of a memory
experience may be logically consistent with the non-existence of the previous event of which it purports to be a memory, the realistic
view that memory is trustworthy is simpler [d], "besides supplying the goods in which the other theory [namely, memories of an unreal
past] trades".
METAPHYSICS
[3] Ayer's early logical positivist philosophy was iconoclastic and explicitly anti-metaphysical in virtue of the verification theory of
meaning. However, his later writings [see especially Metaphysics and Common Sense] suggest he had acquired a more sympathetic
attitude. He now regarded metaphysics as an attempt to build a system which would accommodate contemporary scientific concepts and
principles. Metaphysics was thus seen as a kind of revisionary and constructive analysis [a], and as having some explanatory value as a
'secondary system' [CQP, III C] [see below 3c]. In Language, Truth and Logic he seemed to be committed to a 'neutral monist'
ontology. Central to this was the claim that 'entities' such as physical objects and minds could be turned into logical constructions
(namely, 'sets of experiences) by a process of reductive analysis and thereby be shown to be 'unreal' [b]. However, he came to adopt the
view that one must choose between one of two supposedly conflicting realist 'systems' the scientific account of physical objects (in
terms of particles, and so on) and the common sense or realist view that the world consists of tables, trees, and the like. In Central
Questions [ch. VE] he discusses the scientific theory in terms of primary and a secondary system. The primary system includes the data
(of immediate perception) and the propositions that support the theory, while the theory as such belongs to the secondary system (which
also includes 'entities' which cannot be identified with objects of the primary system but which are conceptual tools for arranging the
primary facts). In the case of conflict the one system is treated as concerned with fact, the other as explanatory. Because the distinction
between fact and theory is only relative, Ayer thinks we have some choice as to where to draw the line, but says a "reasonable decision"
can be made. The question of what actually exists is an empirical one to be considered within the framework of the theory which
supplies criteria for answering it [c]. [See also CQP, VII B. and The Origins of Pragmatism.]
On the question of minds, Ayer [CQP, VI B] rejects claims that there are mental substances or transcendental egos. We have no
empirical or other grounds for asserting the existence of such entities. There is no self other than inter-relations of experiential data. The
claim to self-consciousness, he says, is just the claim that one's present or past experiences are one's own. Moreover, 'I' and 'my body' are
not simply substitutable. Rather, "my body is grammatically represented as one of my possessions". However, he allows that grammar is
not always a safe guide to the facts [d]. The use of the personal pronoun commits us to no more than is strictly necessary for the
establishment of one's self-identity; and experiences suitably related to one's body and to each other are sufficient or this purpose. Our
sensations, perceptions, and thoughts are indeed mental acts: but for Ayer they do not have 'intentional' objects; rather they are to be
understood as predicable to 'persons' regarded as physical objects (which, like other physical objects are the "product of theory").
Thus Ayer does not deny we have an inner private life; and he rejects 'physicalist', that is, behavioural or dispositional theories as well as
functionalist and identity theories of mind [CQP, VI D; see also Philosophy in the Twentieth Century, passim] [e].
METHODOLOGY
[4] The distinction between primary and secondary systems is employed also in Ayer's analysis of explanation [CQP, VII]
and causation [VII C, VIII D]. He says that the ascription of causality involves nothing more than a de facto correlation or constant
conjunction of facts, and that this implies reference to a generalization of a law-like character in that it can be 'projected' over
undetermined or imaginary instances. (He argues for causal terms to be considered as facts rather than as events, because in this way
they can accommodate 'negative' causes, and they fit in better with the complexity of usage to cover states of affairs at different
observational or theoretical levels.) Correlations occur at the primary level while projections take place at the explanatory secondary
level [a]. However, he argues that not all constant conjunctions are causal: some correlations are accidental, and many may relate to
human decisions and actions, and the generalizations we are 'disposed' to project need be no more than "generalizations of tendency".
The difference between accidental generalizations and generalizations of law consists in a difference in our attitude towards them.
Generalizations of fact are more 'vulnerable' to new information in a way that generalizations of law are not. But the latter entail
'unfulfilled conditionals'. A particular event upon which we base a projection is said to be the cause and a 'necessary' condition only in
the sense that the behaviour would not have occurred without the event (that is, the corresponding statement is a counterfactual
conditional). In general, rejecting the distinction between motives and causes, Ayer considers the explanatory model of the natural
sciences can be extended to the human sciences [see 'Man as a Subject for Science'] [b]. In universal generalizations, he suggests, there
are various features which lead us to single out one factor rather than another as the cause (for example, the results of our own actions,
the role played by events in a wider explanatory system, and so on). Otherwise identification of such factors is arbitrary. In the last
analysis, cause and effect have their place only in our imaginative arrangements and extensions of the facts at the primary level.
Ayer's account of explanation requires theories to fit the facts, that is, if they are to have any explanatory value they must be empirically
testable. This leads to the problem of induction [CQP, VII A, VIII A] (though he says that simple inductive procedures achieving
universal hypotheses by generalizing from observed instances have a part to play in comparison with the advancing of theories by
connecting events in novel ways). The assumption that event A will be followed by event B (it having done so on a previous occasion)
presupposes that nature is uniform. However, he argues [Probability and Evidence and CQP, VIII A] that in formulating the principle we
must avoid making it either too strong or too weak. If it is made too strong, we force it into a deductive form (premisses, conclusion)
which will be invalidated by any exception. If it is too weak, it will be consistent with any sequence of events. It is legitimate, indeed
necessary, to seek for 'backing', but Ayer accepts that the possibility of error cannot be eliminated [c]. As noted above [see 2b], there is a
problem with attempts to justify our beliefs. There is also a problem with evidence. Confirmation procedures are beset with paradoxes
(such as Hempel's). Even the falsificationist approach is inadequate [CQP, VIII C] [d]. It is an inductive step, Ayer says, to assume that a
theory which has passed a variety of testing procedures leading to increasing degrees of corroboration is a better guide to the future than
one which as not been tested or which has but has been found wanting. Morever, we do require hypotheses to be confirmed. Consider the
hypothesis that malaria is contracted as a result of a mosquito bite. According to the falsificationist we should not be interested in a
person bitten by the insect if we did not know whether he had malaria, because his case could not falsify the hypothesis. But, according
to Ayer, if the experimenter discovered that the subject had contracted the disease this would be taken as confirmation.
The concepts of backing and testing are connected with that of probability; and this is also relevant to Ayer's concern with the
assessment of evidence in the context of his critique of scepticism and his analysis of justification. [See CQP, VIII, B; also Probability
and Evidence.] To explain probability Ayer discusses three senses of the term used in different kinds of statements, and which he says
must be kept distinct. (1) A priori statements such as those about, say, the throwing of dice. These relate to the mathematical calculus of
chance and has nothing to say about the likelihood of actual events. (2) Statistical statements, such as that about the probability that an
unborn child will be a boy. These relate to a frequency theory referring to classes of events, and therefore are not helpful in individual
cases, as an individual may belong simultaneously to different classes and this gives rise to problems of choice. (3) Statements of
'credibility'. These may be based on statistics. But Ayer rejects the view that they can be understood in terms of a logical relation; for (i)
they then become analytic; (ii) the probability may vary according to the evidence. There can be no grounds for deciding between
different statements all of which are logically true. How then is evidence assessed? Can we be sure it has all been gathered in a given
explanatory situation? Is there not an arbitrary element involved? Ayer argues that "'p' is probable" is to be understood as meaning that it
is reasonable to believe 'p' rather than as a qualified assertion of 'p' [e]. We must therefore appeal to all relevant factors, negative or
positive. But this gives rise to the problem of the reliability of sample instances. Are they fair or deviant? Ayer says they must be
supposed to be fair; we can go no further.
Ayer's conclusion from his discussion of paradoxes and probability that, whatever the evidence, we still have some latitude in our choice
of the hypotheses we are going to project. We can offer different criteria or standards of rationality, but in the last analysis the only test is
whether the method of choosing hypotheses 'works' whether the past proves to be a successful guide to the future [f]. And by 'success'
he means the likelihood of our being correct, as measured in terms of the theories we accept.
ETHICS/ AESTHETICS
[5] Ayer's views on ethics were first set out in Language, Truth and Logic [ch. VI] and generally remained unchanged in later essays
[see, for example, 'On the Analysis of Moral Judgements']. (He notes that what he will say about statements of ethics applies to
statements of aesthetics, and indeed to all 'judgements of value'.) He starts by dividing ethical statements into four classes: (1)
propositions which express definitions of ethical terms or judgements about such definitions; (2) propositions which describe
phenomena of ordinary experience; (3) "exhortations to moral virtue"; and (4) actual ethical judgements. He then confines his discussion
to the first class, which he says are the only propositions properly belonging to ethical philosophy. (The others are either propositions of
psychology or sociology or are not really propositions at all.) Ayer denies that 'normative' sentences (for example, 'x is wrong') are
equivalent to sentences expressing any kind of empirical propositions and so he rejects two kinds of naturalistic moral philosophy
subjectivism and utilitarianism [a]. According to one version of the former, to call an action right, or a thing good, is to say that it is
generally approved. But Ayer argues that no self-contradiction is involved in saying that some generally approved of action is not right,
or a thing not approved of is good. Similarly, in the case of utilitarianism, there is no self-contradiction involved in asserting that it is
sometimes wrong to perform the action which would actually or probably cause the greatest happiness. He also rejects 'intuitionist' or
absolutist' theories, as they provide no criterion for determining the validity of moral judgements. Although according to such theories
moral judgements are held to be synthetic, they are also regarded as not empirically verifiable. However, Ayer agrees with the absolutists
that fundamental ethical concepts (good, duty, obligation) are unanalysable. However, he regards them as 'pseudo' concepts [b], in that
they add nothing to the factual content of statements such as 'You stole the money' in 'You were wrong to steal the money'. His own
position is that ethical and aesthetic statements have no objective validity. Ethical and aesthetic concepts not only serve to express
feeling; they also an emotive function, namely, to arouse feelings, for example, of moral disapproval, so as to stimulate action . And some
are used in such a way as to give the sentences in which they are used the effect of commands [c]. In cases of dispute, argument is not
about values but about questions of fact whether, for example, a person has misjudged the consequences of an action, or the
motivation of the agent, and so on.
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Although in the course of his long career Ayer moved some way from the youthful radicalism of Language, Truth and Logic, he
remained firmly committed to the basic assumptions of empiricism. Philosophy is regarded as essentially the "logic of science" the
analysis of interrelations and translatability between different classes and levels of statements. However, the modifications he introduced
are significant. He came to be less concerned to eliminate metaphysics than to investigate how knowledge claims might be justified in
the face of scepticism; and this led him to examine the concepts of evidence and probability. His broadly pragmatic approach and appeal
to 'reasonableness' allowed it to be a matter of choice how strong one's criteria for knowledge should be. His linguistic phenomenalism
gave way to a more physicalist approach later grounded in his distinction between primary (factual) and secondary (explanatory)
systems. Persons too are physical objects, the 'self' being understood in terms of interrelated experiential data. He preserved the privacy
of 'inner' life against behaviourism and dispositional theories but also rejected Cartesian or transcendental accounts. Generally the
question of what there is is a matter to be determined by criteria appropriate to the theoretical framework within which one is by choice
operating.
Perhaps the main objection to Ayer's general approach comes from linguistic philosophers. They criticize his ready acceptance that our
conceptual scheme may be modified as utility requires without any recognition of the alleged primacy of our everyday publicly validated
discourse, and also his conviction that any change has to be effected in conjunction with our scientific theories. The distinction he made
between primary and secondary systems, and within which he accommodated his account of physical objects and minds, is thus rejected.
It has also been claimed that Ayer is too firmly wedded to the distinction between logical and factual statements. Recent work has raised
questions about the supposed a priori-analytic-necessary and a posteriori-synthetic-contingent parallelism. And although he had been
receptive to Quine's ontology, Ayer never responded to his critique of the analytic-synthetic distinction itself. His ethical theory has also
elicited considerable critical response. It has been said that while ethical statements do have an evaluative function they also have both
prescriptive and descriptive functions. Even if this alternative account is equally contentious, most philosophers would accept, as against
Ayer, that ethical statements are more than just expressions of feelings. Moral terms have 'meaning' (however this may be construed). It
is also questionable whether the notion of a moral dispute can have purchase given Ayer's premisses. Is the dispute just about, say,
misunderstanding or motives, or about consequences?
AUSTIN
(1911 60)
PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE
[1] Austin's primary interest was in the philosophy of language. He supposed that careful (albeit non-systematic) empirical examination
of linguistic usage and distinctions could often show that various philosophical doctrines were fundamentally flawed, and that the
problems they purported to solve were really pseudo-problems. However, more positively, he also claimed that language analysis might
uncover genuine problems, and supposed that they could be resolved through the introduction of a new and more refined terminology.
He did not consider what is often called 'ordinary language' to have any kind of special status, though he said that, where practical
matters are concerned, it would be a mistake to neglect the distinctions such language makes. [See 'A Plea for Excuses'.] He called this
kind of philosophy 'linguistic phenomenology' [a]; and he regarded it as the starting-point of a new 'science' of language.
His techniques were applied in many branches of philosophy. Thus, in the philosophy of action he examined the concept of choice, by
accurately analysing the usage of 'could have' in such a sentence as 'I could have done x if I had so chosen'. [See 'Ifs and Cans'.] He
argued against the claim that 'should' is substitutable for 'could' and implied that it is mistaken to suppose it is always a conditional that is
implied by 'if', or that a conditional has to be causal (from which he seemed to draw the conclusion that freedom to perform actions is
not a causal power) [b]. Another good example is his treatment of the concept of a sense-datum in perception theory. What we directly
perceive, he argued, are not sense-data (yellow patches, bent shapes, and so on) but material objects (the moon, an actual stick in water),
which appear to us in some quite understandable ways, depending on circumstances. Furthermore, it is mistaken, he said, to regard some
sense-data or 'sensibilia' as constituting the directly verifiable foundations for incorrigible propositions which might provide the basis for
knowledge [Sense and Sensibilia] [c].
In his early work [for example, 'Other Minds'] Austin had already made an important distinction between 'performative' and 'descriptive'
(later called 'constative') utterances. When I say I know that something is he case I am not describing a state of mind but asserting my
authority for making the claim. Like promising to do something, 'knowing' is a performative word. Performatives cannot be true or false,
only 'happy'/ 'unhappy'. Similarly there are performatory features about the utterance 'p is true'. But Austin argued for a modified
correspondence theory of truth which is couched in terms of (a) 'descriptive' conventions, which correlate sentences with types of
situations to be found in the world, and (b) 'demonstrative' conventions (statements, that is, sentences in use) which actually obtain in the
world at a given time [see 'Truth'] [d].
In the face of difficulties arising out of his distinction between performatives and descriptive/ constative utterances Austin developed a
more sophisticated classification. [See 'Performative-Constative' and How to do Things with Words, XI.] There are, he said, three kinds
of speech-act.
(1) 'Locutionary' acts. In such instances we utter sentences with a certain sense and reference to convey meaning.
(2) 'Illocutionary' acts. These utterances are deemed to carry a certain 'force' as when we intend to inform, order, warn someone, and
so on.
(3) 'Perlocutionary acts. These speech-acts are those which produce a particular effect, whether or not they are intended or are successful.
He argued that any given utterance is both locutionary and illocutionary; meaning and force cannot be sharply distinguished within the
total speech-act. He therefore no longer appeals to a distinction between purely constative (descriptive) and purely performative
utterances [e].
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Austin's highly original work on the analysis of linguistic distinctions was influential for some time in post-war Oxford. However, more
recently a number of commentators have drawn attention to what they perceive to be limitations of his way of doing philosophy.
(1) It is said that while analysis of ordinary linguistic usage may indicate, for example, that arguments for the existence of something
being as it looks are erroneous, it does not follow that the philosophical problems associated with the foundation of perceptual beliefs
have disappeared.
(2) Some critics have pointed to what they see as inadequacies in his actual treatment of some particular problems. Strawson, for
example, has argued that in his theory of truth Austin has confused semantic conditions governing the truth of a statement S 1, which
asserts that S2 is true, with what is actually asserted when we say S 2 is true. the primary concern should be how we use the word 'true'
rather than when.
(3) A more general objection is that an analysis of speech-acts does not help us to answer the question of what it actually is to understand
linguistic rules. However, it should be said that Austin tended to be interested in linguistic distinctions for their own sake rather than for
any incidental application they might have to problem solving. But when he does consider traditional problems, his view that 'revision',
namely, a 'straightening out' of ordinary language and the introduction of new terminology, is needed if those problems are to be tackled
satisfactorily, has been questioned by philosophers in the tradition of (the later) Wittgenstein.
HAMPSHIRE
(1914 2004 )
ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY/
'DESCRIPTIVE METAPHYSICS'
Sir Stuart Hampshire was born in Lincolnshire and educated at Repton School and Balliol College, Oxford. He was elected to a
Fellowship of All Souls in 1938. After the war he taught philosophy at University College, London and from 1950 at Oxford, where he
was a Fellow of New College, before returning to University College, London as Professor of Mind and Logic. In 1960 he was elected a
Fellow of the British Academy. From 1970-84 he was Warden of Wadham College, Oxford. He later taught at Stanford and Princeton
Universities. He was knighted in 1979.
CRITICAL SUMMARY
While showing the influence of the analytical philosophy of both Wittgenstein and Austin, Hampshire's philosophical writings are
characterized also by a more systematic approach, a refreshing openness to twentieth century 'continental' thought, and indeed by the
account taken of other disciplines such as aesthetics and psychoanalysis.
The distinction he makes between scientific explanation and 'understanding' (akin to the Verstehen of hermeneutic philosophers) of the
inner mental life of persons has not surprisingly been criticized by physicalist and functionalist philosophers of mind and by
methodologists who argue in favour of extending covering-law models to the human sciences. Other views of Hampshire, concerning (1)
persons as self-conscious intentional and autonomous agents albeit 'conditioned' by history; (2) introspective access by the 'recessive
'I' to one's own inner life and decision-making; and (3) the relationship between self-knowledge and freedom, and control of one's
dispositions, are also contentious and have been criticized by a variety of physicalist and extensionalist-orientated philosophers. But with
such positions Hampshire has made a major contribution to theories of agency and in the wider field of philosophical anthopology.
His liberal and pluralist views on ethics and political philosophy (which have much in common with those of his friend, Sir Isaiah
Berlin, and indeed of Ricoeur and Habermas) are meritorious for their emphasis on openness and the search for consensus and
reconciliation implicit in his appeal for the subordination of claims to moral supremacy to the demands of a common humanity and
the need for co-existence, and in his (and Berlin's) recognition that there are no utopian solutions, and that conflicts belong as much to
the essence of the human condition as does the search for rational procedures to minimise them. These claims may of course be
contested both by many thinkers who subscribe to various kinds of normative ethics (Kantian, Thomistic), by Marxists, or by
Enlightenment and positivist philosphers. Many people may also find them nave. But, in the last analysis, it is difficult to discern any
viable alternative other than force.
RICOEUR
(1913 2005)
HERMENEUTIC PHENOMENOLOGY
Paul Ricoeur was born in Valence, France and studied at the Sorbonne. While a prisoner of war in Germany he studied Husserl,
Heidegger, and Jaspers about whom he later wrote a book with a fellow prisoner. From 1948-1956 he was a professor of the history
of philosophy at Strasbourg University. He occupied the chair of general philosophy at the Sorbonne from 1957 until 1966 when he
moved to the University of Paris X, Nanterre. Although he resigned in 1970 during student riots and went to the University of Louvain
he returned to Nanterre in 1973 and combined his teaching there with a professorship at the University of Chicago. He also became
Director of the Centre for Phenomenological and Hermeneutical Studies in Paris.
PHENOMENOLOGY/ HERMENEUTICS
[1] Ricoeur's first interest was in what he saw as a lacuna in phenomenology: its apparent inability to deal with the concept of the will
(reflecting no doubt Husserl's emphasis on the cognitive, perceptual consciousness in his analysis of intentionality). Ricoeur set out
[Freedom and Nature] to provide an account of the will without abandoning the phenomenological method which purported to describe
the 'essential' structures of consciousness. A key problem here proved to be the seeming opposition of the freedom of the will, which
underlies projects and motives, and those features of human nature, such as preformed character, the unconscious, passions, our 'history',
and indeed life and death themselves, which appear to condition, limit, constrict our willing. A 'common subjectivity' is the basis for
what his 'descriptive phenomenology' reveals as "the reciprocity of the involuntary and the voluntary" [a]. To understand the relations
between these aspects of our being we must, he says, "constantly reconquer the Cogito grasped in the first person from the natural
standpoint" [F & N, Introduction]. In other words, we must not think of the body as just an object; for this tends to divorce knowledge of
the involuntary from the Cogito and leads to its degradation through the loss of the two distinctive characteristics of consciousness: its
intentionality and its reference to an 'I' which lives in its experience. Instead we must think in terms of the body as a 'subject' or 'personal'
body, and existence as incarnated. But while the body and the involuntary can be discovered only in the context of the Cogito, this latter
continues to posit itself; and Ricoeur suggests that complete reconciliation, a final objectivity of understanding, requires more than
intellectual attention to structures: "It requires that I participate actively in my incarnation as a mystery. I need to pass from objectivity to
existence" [ibid.]. The intellect itself will give us only 'limit concepts' of God, motivated freedom, incarnate freedom, and a final 'utopia'
of freedom which reveals that the entire circle of limit concepts is focused around the idea of creative freedom. These limit concepts help
us only to understand "the condition of a will which is reciprocal with an involuntary". They are regulatory and not constitutive; they are
as "ideal essences which determine the limit degree of essences of consciousness". The ideal is a genuine Transcendence as
a presence which surpasses the subjectivity [b], the description of which characterizes the limit concepts. [See F & N, Conclusion.]
Ricoeur believed that this thesis raised two problems: (1) whether the human freedom and finitude or 'fallibility' could be dealt with
adequately within a phenomenological framework [see Fallible Man]; (2) the experience of human evil. Arguing that this latter problem
could not be treated satisfactorily by means of an analysis of phenomena, he embarked on a study of symbols 'primary' symbols such
as guilt and sin, and 'secondary' ones or myths, such as tragic blindness, the fall of the soul (which we encounter of course in Greek
classics and in the Christian doctrine). This gave rise to a hermeneutic of symbolism. [See Symbolism of Evil]. By 'symbols' Ricoeur says
he understands all expressions of double meaning, wherein a primary meaning refers beyond itself to a second meaning which is never
given directly. He sees psychoanalysis as the paradigm in this initial account of hermeneutics. In this context Ricoeur identified two
types of thinker in relation to their respective interpretive systems for analysing the 'deep' meanings and desires underlying symbols.
There are those (Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud) Ricoeur calls them 'masters of suspicion' who seek to destroy symbols on the
grounds that they present a false reality: these are the 'demystifiers'. The other type, including Gadamer and Ricoeur himself,
are 'demythologizers' in that they regard symbols as a window into a 'sacred reality' they are attempting to penetrate [see Freud and
Philosophy] [c].
[2] Ricoeur came to recognise [The Conflict of Interpretation; see also Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, Pt. II] that there was a
certain 'lingual' or semantic feature common both to the symbols of his hermeneutics and the distorted expressions studied by
psychoanalysis. And here he encountered a new challenge from structuralism. [According to the structuralists, for example, de
Saussure though Ricoeur responded more particularly to Hjelmslev, language must exist in some sense prior to its instantiation in
individual speech-situations or, to use today's terminology, speech-acts. Language is regarded as possessing meaning in itself, as it were,
rather than as the intentional object of mental acts or of psychological 'contents'. This thesis is implicit in de Saussure's distinction
between 'langue' and 'parole'. 'Langue' refers to the total structure of 'signs', that is, meanings and words which parole, as a set of
individual speech-acts (be they English, Chinese, or any other language), instantiates. Furthermore de Saussure argued in favour of a
holistic approach to language. The meaning of a given word or term, considered as a 'sign', is to be understood relationally. When I say,
for example, that an object is red, this entails it is not green, blue, and so on. What is signified is not some underlying non-linguistic
'essence'. Signification consists rather in the role played by the written or spoken word in the total structure of system elements or
'signifiers'.] Now the convergence between the structuralist and psychoanalytic critique which Ricoeur saw as targeting his theory of
symbols and 'philosophy of the subject' he called the 'semiological challenge'. In response to this he worked out a new hermeneutics
which extended interpretation to all phenomena which could be regarded as in some sense textual. And he claimed he was able to show
that structuralism and hermeneutics are complementary approaches to the study of language, symbolism, and meaning [a]. While
structuralist analyses are concerned with categorizing phenomena and describing the ways they combine in closed systems, the
hermeneutic method can interpret descriptions by attributing to them specific roles or functions. The hermeneutic role thus becomes
meta-linguistic.
Throughout the 1970s Ricoeur was concerned to develop a theory of language to support this new hermeneutic philosophy, for which
purpose he drew on analytic philosophy. [See HHS, Pt II; also The Rule of Metaphor.] Of particular importance here are his distinction
between system and discourse the latter being understood in terms of a dialectic between event and meaning ; his work on metaphor
and narrative; his suggestion that action should be regarded as akin to a text [see sec. 5]; and his reworking of the initial debate between
hermeneutics and phenomenology. This enabled him to attempt to resolve the dichotomy between understanding and explanation
between the human sciences and the natural sciences. [HHS, Pt. III.] His starting point is his distinction between discourse and
dialogue. Discourse is closely related to interpretation, that is by language (before being interpretation of language) ['What is a text?'
in HHS, Pt II]. To understand interpretation he notes that the relationship of signs relate to objects gives rise to a new and 'open' relation
of 'interpretant' and 'sign' which can be grafted onto the former relation. This brings to light "a triangular relation of object-sign-
interpretant" which can serve as a model for another triangle constituted at the level of the statements comprising text. Discourse is
written text, dialogue spoken and heard [b]. Ricoeur says that discourse is detached from the circumstances which produced it the
speech acts, the intentions of the speaker have been left behind, the person addressed can be anyone, and there are no ostensive
references. In these respects it differs from dialogue. Ricoeur now argues that similar characteristics may be identified in actions in so far
as they can be detached from the agent and can be repeated leaving their marks or records in the world. Underlying these distinctions
is his view that as soon as objective meaning has been detached from the author's subjective intentions a multitude or 'plurivocity' of
possible interpretations is opened up interpretations which reveal the significance of an action or text as a function of the world-views
of both hearer/ reader/ observer and speaker/ author/ agent. Central to his attempt to reconcile explanation and understanding is Ricoeur's
notion of the 'hermeneutic arc'. The entire theory of hemeneutics, he says, "consists in mediating an interpretation-appropriation by the
series of interpretants which belong to the work of the text upon itself" [HHS, ch. 5]. This idea of interpretation as appropriation lies at
the extremity of the arc [c]. And he thinks it possible to situate explanation and interpretation along such an arc and thereby to integrate
these opposed attitudes within an overall conception of reading as the recovery of meaning. This brings about an integration of two
hermeneutical moves or directions from existential understanding to explanation and from explanation back to understanding.
In the first move guesses are made. This is similar to the forming of hypotheses based on analogies, metaphors, 'divination', and the like.
What these hypothetical guesses must accomplish is the provision of sense for terms and readings for texts, and the situation of parts and
wholes in classificatory schemes or hierarchies, thus allowing a range of interpretations. The guesses are subjectively validated by means
of rational argument comparable to the legal debate that takes place in court procedures. But this is not the same as empirical
verification. Guesses which do not admit of confirmability or which are self-confirmed (compare the problem of verification in, say,
Freudian, psychoanalysis) are eliminated in a manner comparable to the method of falsifiability the criteria in Ricoeur's methodology
being internal incoherence and relative implausibility.
As for the reverse move, Ricoeur makes a distinction between subjective and structuralist approaches in relation to what he sees as the
referential function of a text. The subjectivist approach involves a gradual construction of the world behind the text but presupposes the
'pre-understanding' of the interpreter which can never be fully transcended, though a kind of asymptotic approximation can be
achieved. The structuralist approach, on the other hand, suspends reference to the world behind the text and concentrates on identifying
and classifying the parts within the text and their interconnections [d]. Two levels can be identified here. (1) There is the nave surface
meaning (the narrative of the myth, for example). But (2) what understanding needs is a depth semantics. This is what the text (in the
wide sense) is 'about' as a non-ostensive reference and which passes beyond the author's intentions. For understanding to be achieved
requires an affinity between the reader and this aboutness, by means of which subjectivity and objectivity are intimately related. As
Ricoeur concludes, understanding is entirely mediated by the whole of the explanatory procedures which precede it and accompany it.
[3] Ricoeur's interest in hermeneutics led him to enter into the Gadamer-Habermas debate [see HHS, Pt I; see also the respective
Profiles]. His general thesis is that the critique of ideology and the hermeneutics of tradition are interdependent. And he thinks of the
conflict between Gadamer and Habermas in terms of the apparent opposition between understanding and explanation. Gadamer's view is
that this ontology of tradition our pre-understandings, prejudices, effective historical consciousness limits possible meanings.
Habermas, however, aspiring to the ideal finality of emancipation, argues that these constraints can be transcended. Now, understanding
involves mediation between the interpreter's immediate and emerging horizons, and this in turn requires the interpreter to 'distance'
himself from the text. According to Ricoeur this is to adopt a stance of critical self-understanding similar to that proposed in Habermas's
critique of ideology. At the same time he thinks that the critique of ideology cannot be separated from tradition. The ideals of
emancipation and undistorted communication go back beyond the Enlightenment to the Greeks, Hebrews, and to the New Testament.
Therefore there is no incompatibility between Gadamer and Habermas; indeed they complement each other, are mutually dependent.
Moreover, each becomes ideological when they are artificially separated [a]. Ricoeur's approach here illustrates his quest for a method
which will uncover the ontological structures of meaning and perhaps also succeed in giving an interpretation of a "type of being-in-the-
world unfolded in front of the text" [HHS, p. 141] (as against that which is behind the text, for example, hidden psychological
intentions).
[4] Underlying these attempts to resolve conflicting methods is Ricoeur's wider aim to achieve a general philosophical synthesis of
traditions; and central here is his approach to the relationship between hermeneutics and Husserlian phenomenology. [See HHS, Pt I, ch.
3.] Ricoeur follows Husserl in his claim to discover essences by means of his transcendental methodology, but he modifies the position
to take account of the critiques of Husserl by (the later) Heidegger and Gadamer, both of whom locate understanding ontologically in
language [a]. But as against Heidegger's (early) description of Dasein in terms of 'ready-to-handedness', its engagement with the world,
the realization of its practical projects, Ricoeur argues that the meaning of Dasein is to be uncovered by a hermeneutic theory of
interpretation [b]. The key notion here is that of 'distanciation' [ibid. chs. 3 & 4]. The eidetic, pre-linguistic data identified as a
consequence of bracketing and the transcendental reduction are thereby distanced, set off from the linguistic descriptions; and indeed
this distancing he regards as a precondition for any reference back to the existential structures of being-in-the-world. As he says, "the
reference of the linguistic order back to the structure of experience (which comes to language in the assertion) constitutes. the most
important phenomenological presupposition of hermeneutics" [ibid., p. 118]. It is only by application of a methodological hermeneutics
to an eidetic phenomenology that the Husserlian project of transcendental phenomenology can be realized. Husserl's epochic suspension
of the subject's concern for the life-world cannot of itself achieve objective knowledge. Ricoeur' aim therefore is to put an end to the
ideal and desire of the "subject's transparence to itself" ['On Interpretation', sec. 3; and see HHS, Pt I, ch. 3] [c].
Ricoeur's research into the linguistic and historical aspects of human understanding culminated in the 1980s with his publication of Time
and Narrative, in which he returned to his initial concern with subjectivity and human action but considered now in the context of his
ideas on narrative and the interpenetration of thought and symbol in culture [see also 'The Narrative Function' in HHS; 'On
Interpretation'; and further sec. 6]. But it is perhaps his most recent work, Oneself as Another generally regarded as his magnum
opus that his ideas receive their fullest synthesis and integration. These are presented in some detail in the following sections.
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Ricoeur is notable for the originality and breadth of his thought (comprehending theology, literary and critical theory, as well as
hermeneutics and general philosophy), and his utilization of insights drawn from structuralism, analytic philosophy, existentialism, and
phenomenology. The key feature of his philosophy is his extension of hermeneutics from the 'text' to embrace the totality of human
existence. Indeed he may be said to have attempted to 'textualize' human action analogically. Characteristic also is his eclecticism and
tendency to synthesize. He sets out to reconcile dialectically, for example, explanation and understanding, and to mediate between
Gadamer and Habermas in their approaches to truth and rationality.
Various criticisms can be made of his bold enterprise (not least by those commentators most sympathetic to his work).
(1) It has been argued that conceptualization of action as a 'text' "rests upon an illegitimate extrapolation from language and results in an
undesirable reification of action" [Thompson, p. 215].
(2) The methodology Ricoeur employs to deal with the social conditions of action has also been criticized [Thompson, p. 216]. In its
explanatory aspect it has been held to be unsuitable for the task; while in its critical aspect it has been said to lack a firm basis for
critique.
(3) While Ricoeur sets out to avoid what he perceives as the subjectivity associated with Verstehen in interpretation of texts, it can be
argued that in seeking the objective he underplays, even dismisses the role of authors' intentions and thereby as interpreter falls back
himself into a subjective mode. Moreover, his 'hermeneutics of suspicion', which claims to uncover the 'reality' (the world, including the
'self' "in front of the text") fails to close the 'hermeneutic circle' in relation to both science and art he leaves the text 'open'. Ricoeur's
position is that "the conflict of interpretations is insurmountable and inescapable", because "absolute knowledge is impossible"
[Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, p. 193]. However, it is objected that no criteria are specified which might facilitate a resolution
of conflicting interpretations and bring about partial knowledge.
(4) Although it would probably be generally accepted that Ricoeur's account of selfhood represents a brave attempt to reconcile
constancy and change it can also be argued that it does not go far enough, and that ipseity and the idem self continue in opposition. A full
integration of intentional causality and 'material' causality would seem to require the adoption of a new approach to the concept of cause
one from which both forms of causality are ultimately derivable. Ricoeur appeals to such key notions as attestation and moral
imputability. However, while these may be pragmatically necessary for the sustainng of a sense of selfhood and for inter-personal
relationships, they of themselves do not resolve the dichotomy between the ipse self and the idem self: the 'gap' (see Searle ) remains.
(5) As for his ethics and political philosophy, he will be applauded by philosophers who are suspicious of ultimate objective norms and
for whom a diversity of moral positions is a necessary concomitant of the human condition. Ricoeur's advocacy of consensus ethics,
following his ambitious attempt to reconcile Aristotle's phronesis, by way of Kant's Moralitt, with Hegel's Sittlichkeit, would likewise be
welcomed. At the same time, it might be questioned whether his (non-formalistic) notion of a moral norm against which conflicts are to
be tested has not become so fluid as to be virtually redundant. Universality seems in the last analysis to be defined in terms of consensual
agreement. This is not of course an argument against a transcendental pragmatic approach, but for many commentators who espouse
various forms of objectivist ethics such a position will be seen as untenable.
(6) Finally, as a general criticism, it might be said that Ricoeur's almost obsessive concern to reconcile and integrate all manner and
kinds of positions in diverse fields of philosophy, which some readers will regard as his strength, will be considered by others as his
weakness, in that firstly, not all philosophical claims have to be deemed as containing an element of 'truth' (whatever that might mean),
and secondly that opposing theses often resist reconciliation however hard one might try to achieve it whether one's dialectic is
Hegelian or Ricoeurian.
DAVIDSON
(1917 2003)
ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY
Donald Davidson was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. He was educated at Harvard University, where he studied literature and
classics and then, as a graduate student, philosophy under Quine. He has been Professor of Philosophy at Princeton and latterly at the
University of California, Berkeley.
PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
ANOMALOUS MONISM
[2] [See especially 'Causal Relations', 'Mental Events', and 'Psychology as Philosophy'.] According to Davidson the 'particulars' of causes
and effects are events, with a specialized location in space and time. They can be described in a variety of ways in the form of statements
of causation. Only some of these statements, however, are causal explanations, that is, generally those which make use of descriptions
which show cause and effect to instantiate a strict law [a].
He distinguishes between mental events and physical events. The physical realm is a closed system, but the mental is open. Different
kinds of constitutive principles operate in each case. Thus rationality is appropriate to the mental realm. Reasons, intentions, coherence
in attitudes and actions, for example, are prerequisites for people to be treated as persons. Physical events, on the other hand, are
constrained by quite different constitutive elements, such as strict deterministic laws. Davidson therefore concludes that there cannot be
strict psychophysical 'bridging' laws correlating the mental and the physical; and he also rules out reductive analyses of mental terms to
physical ones. Nevertheless he wants to maintain that mental events are also causes and effects and therefore are subject to laws. So they
must be covered by physical descriptions, because there are no psychophysical laws. When there is a causal connection between the
mental and physical realms the mental event must be supposed to be a physical event. This theory is therefore materialist but non-
reductive [b]. Purely psychological laws, he thinks, are improbable. Davidson argues further that although a causal analysis of the
conditions of intentional actions may not be possible, freedom to act can still be regarded as a causal power of the agent. [See 'Freedom
to Act'.] As for weakness of will, he attributes this to irrationality [c]. We perceive a creature as rational, he says, in so far as we are able
to view his movements as part of a rational pattern comprising also thoughts, desires, emotions, and volitions. But if we want to account
for the fact that an agent does an action a when he believes it would be better to do another thing, we can only say that he has no reason.
He has a reason for doing a, but what he lacks is a reason for not letting his better reason for not doing a prevail. [See 'How is Weakness
of the Will Possible?'].
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Davidson is important largely for his contributions to the theory of meaning and truth and his account of causation, action and mind.
(1) Meaning and truth. He aims to develop a criterion of adequacy for meaning in a natural language, which is based on Tarski's
semantic theory of truth. He is not attempting to define either truth or meaning. But even his limited aims have been criticized on the
grounds that natural languages are not fully amenable to a comprehensive treatment by the techniques of formal logic. Moreover, it is
argued that an extensional treatment of meaning (in terms of observational truth-conditions) is inadequate in so far as it presupposes that
the circumstances in which a supposedly truthful speaker of the language assents or dissents from its sentences can be identified by the
interpreter. Indeed, his approach to the holistic interpretation or translation of language, while appropriate for 'truth', is mistaken in that it
belongs to his theory of meaning rather than being a consequence of it.
(2) Philosophy of mind. For Davidson events are the basic particulars. Explanations of actions in terms of mental events (beliefs,
reasons, desires) are not causal; they conform to normative rationality but as such still require to be brought under laws. As there are no
psychological laws mental events must admit of physical but non-reductive counterpart descriptions. It is a current concern of many
philosophers whether Davidson's 'anomaly' is sustainable and indeed whether it is genuinely 'monistic'.
STRAWSON
(1919 2006)
ANALYTICAL PHILOSOPHY
Sir Peter Strawson was born in London and educated at Christ's College, Finchley and St John's College, Oxford. He was elected a
Fellow of University College and later of Magdalen when he succeeded Ryle as Waynflete Professor of Metaphysics in 1967. He was
elected Fellow of the British Academy in 1960.
METAPHYSICS
[2] In his analysis of the grammatical structures of language Strawson argues that subject expressions have different grammatical
functions. However, he later ['Metaphysics' and Individuals] seeks to look behind these forms to "lay bare the most general features of
our conceptual structure". He sees this as the concern of what he calls 'descriptive' metaphysics (for example, in the work of Aristotle or
Kant), which utilizes categories and concepts "which, in their most fundamental character, change not at all" [Introduction]. This is
contrasted with the 'revisionary' metaphysics of, for example, Descartes, Leibniz, and Berkeley, the aim of which is "to produce a better
structure". He regards the latter as valuable only to the extent that it can assist descriptive metaphysics. Descriptive metaphysics for
Strawson is similar in intention to philosophical, logical, or conceptual analysis but differs in scope and generality [a].
According to Strawson subject expressions are 'complete' in that they pick out 'empirical facts' and thereby enable us to
identify particulars. This identification is another example of a presupposition in the proper use of such expressions. Predicate
expressions on the other hand are 'incomplete', and they introduce universals. This does not involve any presupposition or reference to
empirical facts, but predicate expressions have a role to play in contributing to the meaning of propositions. What are
'particulars'? Strawson is not looking for any 'ultimate' particulars such as (it has been claimed) private thoughts, events, sense-data out
of which other particulars might be constructed. Rather he is concerned to discover particulars which are basic in that they can be
identified without reference to particulars of other types or categories than their own. All identifiable particulars, he says, if not
themselves locatable in a spatio-temporal framework must be uniquely related to particulars which can be so located. It is these which
are the basic particulars; and for Strawson they are material objects [b].
In his account of mind [Individuals, ch. 3; see also 'Self, Mind and Body'] Strawson starts by rejecting two theories which seek to
identify states of consciousness.
(1) The "no-ownership theory". This holds that states of consciousness do not belong to persons or, indeed, to anything at all, though it is
allowed that perhaps they may be causally related to a body. But how then can I refer to 'my' experiences as dependent on the state of a
body without appealing to some kind of concept of ownership? If not, the statement 'All my experiences are dependent on the state of a
given body' would be analytic and empty; and we have no way of identifying particular experiences.
(2) Similarly, if we adopt the (Cartesian) theory that experiences belong to a private ego or self, not only can we not ascribe states of
consciousness to other people, we cannot even ascribe them to ourselves. This is, Strawson argues, because the ascription of states of
consciousness itself cannot he a private matter. We must first know how to ascribe them to other people if we are to ascribe them
meaningfully to ourselves; and this possibility is grounded in the structure of our language [c]. Strawson's own solution is to regard the
concept of a person as a primitive unanalysable concept. Persons are basic particulars to which we can ascribe (a) material object
predicates (M-predicates), for example, 'weighs 10 stone', and (b) person predicates (P-predicates), such as 'is in pain', 'believes in
God'. We can ascribe the latter to ourselves by virtue of our own feelings and consciousness. And such predicates can be ascribed to
other people on the basis of observed behaviour [d] which Strawson thinks provides us with logically adequate criteria for the
purpose of that ascription.
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Firmly rooted in the 'analytical' tradition Strawson is yet a systematizer, and is important particularly for his own contribution to what he
himself has called 'descriptive' metaphysics, which he sees as revealing the overall structure of our conceptual scheme. He is notable also
for his use of the concept of 'presupposition' to criticize Russell's 'Theory of Descriptions', for his performative theory of truth, and for
maintaining the analytic-synthetic distinction.
Criticisms of Strawson's philosophy of language generally come from two sources: (1) philosophers who (like Russell) either accord
primacy to formal 1ogical structures, which they believe can be extracted from informal language, or who seek to eliminate intensional
terms from our philosophical discourse (for example, Quine); and (2) some recent philosophers who, while generally sympathetic to
Strawson, have disagreed with him on technical grounds in relation to difficulties with, for example, the concepts of presupposition
and reference.
Objections to his 'metaphysics' centre on his preference for descriptive rather than revisionary metaphysics. It has been suggested that he
is mistaken in ruling out (in a Kantian manner) the possibility of revision particularly where it might afford some primacy to our
scientific concepts). It has also been argued (for example, by Ayer) that Strawson's attempts to show that the concept of a person is
logically primitive have been unsuccessful; and that his anti-sceptical view of ascribing consciousness to oneself as being grounded in
our language, and as predicated on the assumption that we know how to ascribe consciousness to others, is false. Moreover, it can also
be argued that his theory of M- and P-predicate ascription to the 'primitive concept' of person (an instance of the so-called double aspect'
theory) is as poorly equipped as traditional 'substance dualism' is to cope with problems arising from the supposed interactions of the
'mental' with the 'physical'.
HARE
(1919 2002)
PRESCRIPTIVISM
Richard Hare was born in Backwater, Avon and educated at Rugby School and Balliol College, Oxford. He started writing philosophy
when a prisoner of the Japanese in Singapore during the war. After his repatriation he took his degree and was elected a Fellow of Balliol
in 1947. In 1966 he was appointed White's Professor of Moral Philosophy and elected to a Fellowship at Corpus Christi College. He
taught at Stanford in 1981, and from 1983 until his retirement he was Graduate Research Professor at the University of Florida. He was
elected Fellow of the British Academy in 1964.
ETHICS
[1] Hare's main aim [see The Language of Morals and Freedom and Reason] is to reconcile 'non-descriptivist' theories of moral
philosophy such as emotivism, which generally deny rationality to ethics, and naturalist and non-naturalist 'descriptivist' theories, which
take moral judgements to be logically equivalent to factual ones [a], and which he thinks tend to preserve rationality but only at the
expense of our freedom to form opinions. His approach is grounded in a detailed examination of the 'language of morals' and in
particular of three central claims.
(1) He distinguishes between descriptive and prescriptive judgements [Freedom and Reason, chs 1 and 2]. What makes predicate terms
descriptive is their determination by rules of discourse and consistency of usage. Hare argues that value terms such as 'good' and 'right'
are descriptive just as, say, 'red' is. However, he denies that value words can be defined completely, whether in terms of natural
properties (such as pleasure) or other non-natural value terms. Moral terms additionally have prescriptive meaning. By this he means that
they are commendatory. For example, to say something or someone is good is to put it/ him/ her forward as a standard of rectitude, to be
imitated by others. Descriptive meaning rules thus become synthetic moral principles. He also says that evaluative meaning changes as
social attitudes change [b].
(2) Because moral judgements have descriptive meaning, they are, Hare says, universalizable (unlike other prescriptive judgements
such as commands) [chs 2 and 3]. Thus, if we call something good (or red, say), the meaning-rules of our discourse [c] commit us to
calling something like it in relevant respects good (or red) also. Hare stresses [3.3] that his universalism is a logical and not a moral
thesis. (In Language of Morals[11.5] he had tended rather to think of universalizability as characterizing moral principles.)
(3) There are logical relations between prescriptive judgements; and this enables moral arguments to be developed. Hare offers an
analysis of the logic of moral inferences. [See chs 4, 6, and 10.] He accepts that one cannot validly infer from logical premisses to
evaluative conclusions from an 'is' to an 'ought' [LM 2.5; FR 6.9]. But although he maintains that ethical premisses are neutral as
between different moral opinions (in so far as the job of ethical theory is only to provide conceptual clarification), he argues that we can
move to imperative conclusions from premisses, one of which is imperative and the other indicative (a 'practical' syllogism), by invoking
the two central notions of prescriptivity and universalizability as the rules of moral reasoning [LM 4.1 & 4.2; cf. FM ch. 10] [d].
In a given situation we must decide on what we ought to do by looking for an action to which we can commit ourselves (thus
acknowledging its prescriptivity) and which is also an action which can be universalized thus exemplifying a principle to be
prescribed for others in like circumstances. To test a moral principle Hare also suggests three other requirements: the facts of the case,
the inclination of people to reject evaluative propositions forced on them by the logic of the argument, and their readiness to use
imagination. [See FM 6.3.]
Hare argues further [ch. 5] that support for his distinction between prescriptivism and descriptivism is provided by the existence of the
problem of weakness of will ('backsliding'). Individuals who are weak and fail to act in accordance with their perceived obligations show
by their remorse and feelings of guilt that they have in fact recognised the prescriptivity of a moral judgement. Their not being able to
act appropriately is, Hare says, a psychological impossibility; assent to an imperative does not entail that they must (logically,
analytically) act on it [e], for there are indeed occasions when they 'physically' or 'pathologically' cannot. Instances of weakness of will
do not therefore constitute counter-examples to his prescriptivism. Of course, if a person believes it to be in his power to act on a moral
imperative and yet does not act on it, then for Hare it must follow that that individual could not genuinely have been assenting to the
imperative. [See also LM 2.2 & 11.2.]
In the light of his own thesis Hare argues that the supposed distinction between deontological and teleological theories is a false one. It is
possible to distinguish only between different sorts of intended effects. He therefore sees his own prescriptivism as providing a formal
basis for utilitarianism [ch. 7] [f]. However, he recognises a number of difficulties in the traditional doctrine that need to be resolved.
Firstly, there are problems concerning desires whether equal weight should be given to the same desires had by different persons; or
to supposedly 'higher' and 'lower' desires; and how desires relate to inclinations and interests. Secondly, in view of the difficulties with
the utilitarian concepts of happiness and pleasure, it might be preferable to reformulate the theory in terms of the interests of different
parties. Thirdly, Hare argues that the distinction between act- and rule-utilitarianism collapses once the universalizability of moral
judgements is granted.
However, implicit in the linking of his theory with utilitarianism is a conflict between interests and ideals [chs 8 and 9]. Moral
disagreements arising at the intuitive level can be transcended at the level of critical thought through the provision of a standard of
adequacy for moral principles in terms of satisfaction of interests and universalizability [see also Moral Thinking] [g]. Nevertheless there
may still be moral disagreements if 'fanatics' seemingly disregard the preferences of other people and justify their own by appeals to
'ideals', even if the consequence is persecution of others or themselves. But Hare says that the number of fanatics is relatively small
and that a moral philosophy grounded in universalizability, imagination, clear critical thinking, and a genuine concern for facts will
afford self-protection against propaganda, even if it will not undermine the commitment of determined fanatics.
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Hare's impressive achievement is to have developed a subtle analysis of the language of morals and in-depth examinations of particular
moral conflicts to show how his concepts can be applied. His key distinction is that between descriptivity and prescriptivity of
judgements, the former facilitating universalizability, the latter being the commendatory function of moral terms. More generally, with
his broadly utilitarian thesis he attempts to reconcile teleological and deontological theories of ethics. The acceptability of Hare's
approach clearly depends on the tenability of his fundamental assumptions and distinctions about which there has been much
discussion. The following are some of the main issues.
(1) If a distinction between descriptivity and prescriptivity is sustainable in the way Hare suggests (and many would dispute this), there
would seem to be difficulties for a non-naturalistic ethics in that (a) commendations are arguably in some sense private or subjective
(unlike describable properties); and (b) commendation is not a uniquely differentiating feature of moral discourse.
(2) Hare follows Hume in his acceptance of the fact-value distinction. But in so far as he recognises that both our concepts and
evaluations may change, depending on circumstances and context, it might be supposed that a language could be formulated in which it
would be legitimate to reason from non-imperative premisses to imperative conclusions.
(3) Hare appeals to universalizability. but some commentators argue that this should be understood in a weak sense reflecting
linguistic usage rather than underpinning a Kantian type of ethics. If this is so, then the moral force of Hare's concept would have to be
weakened. In any case, in so far as he seems to be committed to the view that having a desire to perform an action is a necessary
condition of one's assenting to a moral judgement, it would seem that any personal moral belief has to be universalized; and clearly this
can lead to many impractical consequences. In the light of this his assertion that only fanatics will perform such actions is somewhat
optimistic, and indeed his position must lend support to fanaticism and intolerance.
RAWLS
(1921 2002)
John Rawls was born in Baltimore, U.S.A. and educated at Princeton University, gaining his PhD. in 1950.
After teaching at Princeton, Cornell, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology he was appointed a
professor of philosophy at Harvard in 1962, where he remained until he retired in 1991.
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
[1] [A Theory of Justice] Arguing that utilitarianism is a threat to the rights of the individual and does not
adequately address the problem of inequality, Rawls says that people should be treated as ends in
themselves and not as means [a]. He seeks to understand justice in terms of fair distribution of goods in
accordance with the free rational choice of individuals motivated by mutual disinterest; and on account of
this autonomy he considers the principles of justice as categorical imperatives [Sec. 40] [b]. His view of
justice is also closely connected with his definition of a person's good as "the successful execution of a
rational plan of life" (lesser goods being parts thereof) [66]. This plan of life relates to a variety of ends,
including the satisfaction of human desires and needs, friendship, self-realization, and so on; he is not
advocating a crude hedonism. The individual's conception of the good and his sense of justice constitute his
'moral personality'. A moral person is a subject with ends he has chosen, and his fundamental preference is
for conditions that enable him to frame a mode of life that expresses his nature as a free and equal human
being as fully as circumstances permit [85].
Rawls argues that it is precisely such moral persons who are entitled to equal justice and indeed this fact can be used to interpret
the concept of natural rights, the rights that justice as fairness protects [77] [c].
To determine what is just he says we must first distance ourselves behind what he calls the 'veil of ignorance' [24] from the
advantages we possess in society as it actually is and from our own particular conceptions of the good, so as to ascertain what
primary goods are essential for a minimal, tolerable existence. What would we as free and rational persons then choose in this
hypothetical situation? In his later work he replaces the hypothetical contract by an actual social contract 'determined collectively' in
the context of a pluralistic society. Rawls here places great emphasis on the social nature of mankind [d]. This is because it is
through "social union founded upon the needs and potentialities of its members that each person can participate in the total sum of
the realized natural assets of the others" [79]. This leads us, he says, to the notion of the community of humankind, the members of
which enjoy one another's excellences and individuality elicited by free institutions, They also recognize each other's good as an
element in the complete activity the whole scheme they consent to and which gives pleasure to them all. [79]
He sets out his argument as a series of principles which he thinks people would agree on regardless of their
individual personal and economic circumstances [see 11-13, 39, 45]. These principles are 'lexically ordered',
by which he means that a particular principle does not come into play until those previous to it are either
fully met or are shown not to apply. There are two key principles: (1) The first provides that each person's
liberties should be maximized consistent with the provision of equal liberty for every other person. Liberty
is thus an essential aspect of Rawls' theory of justice.
(2) According to the second principle social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that (a) they
benefit everyone, the primary concern being to bring about the greatest benefit for the worst off; and (b)
offices and positions are open to all there should be equality of opportunity. It follows that for him no
advantage can be morally acceptable if it does not benefit those members of society who are the most
disadvantaged. This is called the difference principle. Rawls assumes his two principles to fall under the
heading of 'egalitarianism' [e] (although he notes that there are many forms of equality, and egalitarianism
admits of degrees) [80].
What if the democratically elected governments fails to implement the contracted principles of justice?
According to Rawls, civil disobedience which results from an intention to get the law or government
policies changed is permissible but subject to a number of conditions [f]. Acts of disobedience, he says,
must be public and non-violent, and there must be a willingness on the part of the objectors to accept the
legal and penal consequences. Disobedience must also be based on the political principles underlying the
constitution and not on personal or party interests. Civil disobedience for Rawls thus falls between legal
protest on the one side and conscientious resistance on the other (which is usually based on moral or
religious convictions).
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Rawls' moral and political philosophy has had a considerable impact on 'liberal' intellectual life in America. As a result of his 'thought
experiment' to identify the fundamental principles which would guarantee a minimal tolerable social existence for all citizens, he argues
for a fair distribution of goods as constituting justice, the maximization of individual liberty compatible with the freedom of others,
equality of opportunity, and qualified legitimacy of civil disobedience. His thesis, however, has proved to be highly controversial.
(1) It has been objected that it is not possible to hide completely behind the 'veil of ignorance'; we cannot start from an 'empty' position.
The concept is formalistic. It would seem to follow that we do not have a 'rational' choice in Rawls' sense; or, if we do, other procedures,
for example, risk-taking, might be equally rational.
(2) Rawls regards property as grounding his theory of rights. Some critics argue that the right to property is antecedent to a Rawlsian
society by virtue of tacit agreements, contracts, and the like; and redistribution would in fact constitute an injustice. Moreover,
happiness, or freedom, rather than redistribution of property 'goods' could be taken as the proper foundation for justice.
(3) Rawls seems to subordinate liberty to justice. Some critics are not happy with the perceived consequence that citizens might be
compelled to act in accordance with the principles, notwithstanding their acceptance of the social contract.
DUMMETT
(1925 2011)
ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY
Sir Michael Dummett was born in London and educated at Winchester College and Christ Church, Oxford. He was elected Fellow of All
Souls and subsequently became Reader in the Philosophy of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, lecturing at New College. From
1978 until his retirement in 1992 he was Wykeham Professor of Logic. He has also taught at Berkeley and Stanford, and at the
University of Ghana; and he was the Gifford Lecturer for 1997. He was knighted in 1999.
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Dummett is regarded by many commentators as one of the outstanding analytical philosophers of the twentieth century not only for
his own philosophical thinking but also for his writings on Frege. How one responds to his views on language depends largely on
whether one accepts that the concept of meaning must ground the concept of truth, rather than holding that an implicitly understood
notion of truth is needed to elucidate meaning. If one does follow Dummett, however, there are serious difficulties to contend with.
(1) Some opponents argue that it is mistaken to suppose that the language we use determines our world-view. On the contrary, they say,
the nature of the world determines the way we talk about it and limits what can be said. Metaphysical problems are therefore prior to
semantic issues.
(2) Antirealism requires the overturning of long-established traditions and linguistic conventions in relation to classical logic,
deductive inference, talk about the past, and so on. Against this it might be said that the 'revision' necessitated by the antirealist is no less
radical than that required by many truth-based theories, for example, Davidson's. And even if difficulties with bivalence and the like can
in some way be met, it might be argued that on Dummett's thesis problems with transcendental realism remain. However, a definitive
view has not yet emerged, as controversy between realists and antirealists in relation to meaning and truth is on-going; and much of the
literature has become highly technical.
PUTNAM
(b. 1926)
PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
[2] Putnam initially espoused functionalism [ibid. ch. 4]. The mind is thought of as akin to a computer 'software' program which is
processed by the 'hardware' of the brain, though it is possible that mental life might be instantiated in other hardware structures, such as
computers themselves or silicon-based organisms, for example. What makes a mental state into a particular kind, such as pain, or a belief
that something is the case, is to be located in the network of functional connections that link the behaviour of the organism to the
environment. It is our descriptions of these interconnections that are articulated in the language of the mental. More recently Putnam has
come to reject this position [see Reason and Representation]. While the existence of mental states might be compatible with a range of
physical systems or structures, he now argues that they cannot be identified with functional, physical-chemical, or computationally
characterized states, though they may be emergent from and 'supervenient' on them. Underlying his critique is the view that mental life
rationality, intentionality cannot be (like epistemology) be 'naturalized' [a] and his recognition that a given mental state can be
realized in different computational machines and thus cannot be identified with any particular one.
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Putnam's philosophy is of considerable interest for its combination of the analytic qualities characteristic of some of the best Anglo-
American philosophers with the breadth to be found in much contemporary continental social philosophy and philosophical
anthropology. Moreover, his thought is not static and has undergone considerable revision in his pursuit of truth. These are the key
features:
(1) He rejects Frege's view that sense determines reference in favour of an extensionalist account of meaning and truth determined by
causal connections in the world and the constraints imposed by the language of a given community in 'interpretive practice'. Associated
with this approach is his use of the concept of the rigid designator.
(2) Rejecting both metaphysical 'objective' realism and relativism he espouses what he calls internal realism.
(3) He holds a concept of truth as regulative and as "idealized rational acceptability".
(4) He is committed to essentialism.
(5) In his later work he rejects functionalism and all theories which seek to 'naturalize' mental life.
Inevitably, given the wide range of issues examined by Putnam, his writings have attracted criticisms from philosophers of various
traditions.
(1) Many would dispute the view that mental life can be emergent from or supervenient on physical structures and yet cannot be
naturalized. How this occurs is arguably not adequately accounted for. (As against this, it has to be said that no contemporary theory of
mind and there are many has received universal acceptance.)
(2) More controversial perhaps is his (and Kripke's) theory of the rigid designator and his referential semantics. While the programme
may be feasible as applied to 'natural kinds' such as chemical elements, which have well-defined structures and properties, when it
comes to designating more complex entities, for example, animals, human beings, the theory becomes more questionable and difficult to
sustain without almost casuistic ad hoc modifications. His anti-Fregean (or at least modified Fregean) view of sense and reference is also
controversial and continues to be debated vigorously.
(3) Truth for Putnam is an unrealized ideal. But this raises the question as to how far we can pass beyond conceptual restraints while
remaining within the system. Can coherence, reinforcement 'point' beyond? Is there a middle way between 'metaphysical realism' and
'relativism' as Putnam supposes (we might call this 'weak realism' as opposed to 'strong' realism and antirealism)? Further, can criteria
be set out for "epistemologically ideal conditions" which are either not already grounded in our conceptual scheme or are based on
arbitrary and pragmatic considerations?
HABERMAS
(b. 1929)
CRITICAL THEORY
Jrgen Habermas was born in Dsseldorf and studied philosophy at the universities of Gttingen and Bonn. After a short time as an
assistant to Theodor Adorno (a founder of the so-called Frankfurt school and Director of the Institute for Social Research there) he
became Professor of Philosophy at Heidelberg and then, in 1964, at Frankfurt as Professor of Philosophy and Sociology. In 1971 he was
appointed joint director of the Max-Planck Institute for the Study of the Conditions of Life in the Scientific-Technical World, before
returning to Frankfurt in 1982.
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Habermas is an eclectic philosopher who has produced an original and wide-ranging synthesis of German social philosophy,
hermeneutics, aspects of analytic philosophy, and pragmatism. But, as with so many continental philosophers, his dense writing style and
complex terminology do not facilitate a ready understanding of his thought. He rejects epistemological absolutism yet seeks to preserve
reason as an idealized possibility in the face of cultural relativism by developing his 'critical' theory. He sees all sciences as functions of
human interests. Rejecting the narrow positivist account of meaning, he advocates a 'reconstructive' critique of the sciences, which will
allow for their self-reflection and verification through consequences.
Habermas's view that through, for example, psychoanalysis and liberation from ideology it will be possible to achieve a normative
intersubjective consensus, leading to a universal pragmatic of communicative ethics and political action, is arguably optimistic. Having
rejected both any 'substantive' notion of moral rationality (such as Kant's) and formal rules for grounding morality, he yet assumes
uncritically that removal of ideological distortion will lead to such a rational consensus and thence to a universal ethic. This is
questionable. Habermas claims that it is possible to develop a self-reflective methodology which will enable 'pre-judices' to be overcome
and which will provide the basis for a (pragmatically) objective social science. But against this Gadamer argues that Habermas is
resorting to a traditional and unattainable objectivism [a]. This debate has continued. However, more recently Habermas and Gadamer
seem to have achieved some measure of reconciliation in their views of this issue.
He also regards the consequences of his instrumentalist critical theory both as part of the theory and yet as confirming it. It is debatable
whether this 'pragmatic' approach is adequate to support his claim that the cultural-historical dimension is at least partially
transcended. What criterion of success is offered?
SEARLE
(b. 1932)
ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY
John Searle was born in Denver, Colorado, and educated at the Universities of Wisconsin and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. A
lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford, 1957-9, he subsequently became Professor of Mind and Language at the University of California,
Berkeley, and has been a visiting professor at many other universities in the U.S.A. and Europe.
PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE
[1] [Speech Acts; see also Expression and Meaning.] Central to Searle's account of language is the concept of a speech-act, which he
sees as a type of human action. His philosophy of language is thus a branch of the philosophy of mind (though he draws on his views of
language for his exposition of the latter). The production of a 'sentence token' in a performance of a speech-act is an illocutionary act,
and the basic unit of linguistic communication. The performance of illocutionary acts is a rule-grounded form of behaviour and is
constitutive (as opposed to the regulative employment of rules). Illocutionary acts in general have (1) propositional content, that
is, meaning, and (2) illocutionary force [a], that is, how propositions are to be taken as stating, warning, questioning, and so on.
A theory of meaning for Searle must involve rules for the use of expressions in speech-acts [b]. Illocutionary acts have both intentional
and conventional aspects. A speaker intends to produce certain effects by means of getting a hearer to recognise the intention, and
intends the recognition to be achieved in virtue of the fact that rules for use associate expressions with the production of effects. Searle
argues in favour of the view that meanings are, as it were, 'in the head' grounded in the intentional mental states of speakers and
hearers, but he rejects the necessity to postulate the existence of a 'third realm' [c] of senses or propositions, and so on. And he subscribes
to the theory that the meaning or sense of a proper names is expressed by a 'cluster' of associated descriptions which thereby determines
the reference of the name. Such a theory is said to avoid the problem of linking the name to a single definite description [see especially
'Proper names'] [d]. He also argues that identity sentences (for example, 'Tully = Cicero') could be used to make either analytic or
synthetic statements [e], depending on which descriptive statements are associated with each name [ibid.].
PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
[2] [See Mind, Language and Society and The Rediscovery of the Mind.] Searle's philosophy of mind underpins his views in most of the
branches of philosophy he has been interested in. His main concern is to account for what he identifies as four features of mental
phenomena: consciousness, intentionality, the subjectivity of mental states, and mental causation; and to solve the mind-body problem,
to defeat dualism, he argues in favour of a revision of conceptual categories [a] and refuses "to accept the system of categories that
makes consciousness out as something nonbiological, not part of the natural world" [MLS, p. 52]. He does not believe there is an
intrinsic opposition between the vocabulary of 'mental' and 'physical' [Rediscovery of the Mind, chs 2, 5]. Intentionality perhaps the
central concept for Searle is that which our mental states are directed at or are 'about', that is, represent objects, states of affairs in the
world. It applies to beliefs, desires, perceptions, feelings, as well as intentions and actions [see Intentionality and MLS, ch. 4] [b]. To
explain how intentionality 'represents' Searle appeals to the linguistic concepts of 'propositional content' and 'direction of fit'. The
propositional content or 'sense' of a mental state determines what he calls 'conditions of satisfaction' [Intentionality, ch. 6, MLS, ch. 4].
In the case of belief these are conditions for truth; in the case of intentions they are conditions for the intentions to be effected; while for
desires fulfilment is the condition. The relevant psychological mode determines the direction of fit [c]. Beliefs, for example, are
intended to match the world (the direction of fit is then mind-to-world). If there is a match then we can say the belief is true: there is a
word-to-world direction of fit. Desires and intentions, however, have world-to-mind direction of fit; it is, as it were, the responsibility of
the world if it satisfies or does not satisfy the desire or intention.
Searle extends his theory of intentionality to perception and action [Intentionality, chs, 2 & 3]. Particular states of affairs in the world
give the conditions of satisfaction required for a perceptual experience to be veridical. (He thus subscribes to a realist view of the world
and to a correspondence theory of truth) [d]. Similarly he accounts for human action in terms of 'mental' and 'physical' aspects. When we
act we are conscious of physical changes, as in, for example, exertions; but also involved is a mental component an intention
characterized by intentionality. The content and type of the mental state relates it to the world; and if the state is successful, that is, leads
to the intended action, it is satisfied. The world, Searle says, matches the content of the state. He recognises, however, that many of our
actions, especially those involved in speech, occur without prior reflection, though in such cases there is 'intention-in-action'. It follows
that observed physical behaviour is compatible with different intentions, and that therefore a variety of descriptions may apply and are
known especially to the agent [e].
Both perception and bodily actions have to be caused in an appropriate manner respectively by the state of affairs (world-to-mind)
and the agent's intention (mind-to-world). There is thus an internal connection between causes and effects . Perception and action, he
says, are "causally self-referential". His theory is one of efficient causation [f]. He argues that all mental phenomena, conscious or
unconscious, are caused by brain processes, but at the same time are features of the brain. He clarifies this by means of an analogy. The
liquidity of water is a 'surface' phenomenon realized in the system but yet explained in terms of interactions between water molecules,
that is, the microstructure. The four aspects of mental phenomena thus have a biological explanation; and the interaction of mind and
body, he thinks, ceases to be a problem [g].
As might be expected, Searle rejects functionalist and exclusively physicalist or materialist accounts of mental phenomena, as well as
'strong' theories of artificial intelligence [MLS, ch. 2]. Central to his argument is the view that mental phenomena have semantic content,
whereas computer programs are defined entirely by their syntactical, that is, formal structures. Similarly he attacks cognitivist
theories designed to fill the supposed gap between neurophysiological explanations of human behaviour and commonsense accounts in
terms of desires, hopes, and so on. The key argument here is that human rule-following differs from the following of rules by computers
in that the semantic content has a causal role in the bringing about of what one does [h]. Strictly, computers do not 'follow' rules at all;
only human behaviour is meaningful. (Searle compares the implementation of a formal computer program to the manipulation of
Chinese symbols by a person who has no understanding of the language.)
[3] Freedom. [MLS, ch. 4.] While it is true, he says, that the surface features of the world are both caused by and are realized in
microstructures different levels of atoms, molecules, neurons, etc. (he calls this 'bottom-up' explanation), he argues also for 'top-down'
causation from the mind to the body. We intend, decide to perform particular actions. However, top-down causation works only
because it is already grounded in neurophysiology. So how can there be room for or belief in 'freedom of the will'? Searle's suggestion is
that our conviction of freedom is inseparable from our consciousness that we engage in intentional voluntary actions . The evidence
available suggests that the hypothesis of psychological determinism is false. Radical libertarianism, however, is ruled out by the bottom-
up approaches of physical explanation. Freedom has to operate within a restricted framework. But in the last analysis, Searle admits
that his own approach does not overcome the gap between the causes of one's decision in the form of beliefs and desires and the actual
decision, and the gap between the decision and the performance of an action [a]: "It remains an unsolved problem in philosophy how
there can be freedom of the will, given that there are no corresponding gaps in the brain" [MLS, p. 107].
ETHICS NATURALISM
[5] In his moral philosophy Searle draws on distinctions already made in his philosophy of language and society. As against both
emotivists and prescriptivists, he argues in favour of a descriptivist and naturalist (and 'realist') view of moral judgements. For
him 'evaluative' emotivism and 'factual' descriptivism are not reconcilable. Those who have made this distinction have conflated the
distinction between various kinds of illocutionary force and utterances which make truth claims are which are are mattrers of opinion.
The job of language (in the form of moral judgements) is to describe real values and obligations and which are part of the natural
world [a]. He is therefore particularly concerned to undermine his opponents by rejecting the supposed dichotomy between facts and
values and attempting to show that 'ought' can be derived from 'is'[b]. Consider the example of promising. This, Searle argues, is an
institutionalized fact, that is, it exists within a system of constitutive rules that the legitimacy of the inference to 'I ought to do x' is
effected. The only additional statements required in the argument, Searle says, are empirical assumptions, tautologies, and descriptions
of word usage. [See 'How to Derive "Ought" from "Is" '.]
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Searle's writings on a wide range of philosophical issues are characterized by vision and originality combined with acute analysis. Of
particular interest is the emphasis he places on the philosophy of mind as the basis for his views on perception, language, and social
philosophy. The key features are his detailed treatment of the concept of intentionality, his 'bottom-up' account of mental causation as
grounded in but not reducible to micro-physical structures; a rejection of functionalist and materialist accounts of mind and 'strong'
artificial intelligence theories; a modified treatment of Austin's presentation of speech-acts, and the advocacy of the primacy of sense
over reference and acceptance of the 'cluster' theory of descriptions; a view of meaning as based on intentional mental states; an analysis
of social phenomena in terms of psychological attitudes, and his view that there is radical methodological discontinuity between the
social and the natural sciences; and his attempt to overcome the fact-value distinction in ethics.
Understandably critical attacks have come from many directions. Some of the more serious objections are as follows.
(1) Language. Searle's account of speech-acts probably marks an improvement on Austin's in that Searle argues that a satisfactory theory
of meaning requires an analysis not only of their use (speaker's meaning) in speech-acts (intentions) but also the of semantic rules
followed in use (sentence meaning). Nevertheless some critics have said that this approach is still inadequate in so far as it fails to clarify
what it is to understandlinguistic rules. Searle's espousal of a 'cluster of descriptions' account of names to give sense and fix references
has likewise been criticized on similar grounds by philosophers wedded to extensionalist assumptions and causal theories. Questions can
also been asked about which descriptions are to be included in a cluster, and whether ambiguity can be excluded.
(2) Mind. Searle's apparent claim that the subjective view or first person standpoint is equivalent to consciousness has been questioned.
The issue of 'understanding' has also been raised in relation to his 'Chinese room' analogy. It has been suggested that he seems to
be assuming what is to be proved, namely that a clear indication or criterion is available for determining whether instructions are
understood without being analysable in computational terms. More seriously, some of his opponents reject his claim altogether that
intentionality is the basic or definitive feature of mental states.
(3) Causation and freedom. Searle's biological naturalism, while promising much, arguably does not provide a satisfactory account of the
emergence of freedom though to be fair to him it has to be recognised that he himself considers the problem to be unresolved. A
conscious conviction that we engage in intentional voluntary action does not of itself seem to be philosophically adequate. Likewise his
account of efficient and mental causation may not be as firmly based as one would wish. The analogy of the liquidity of water is not
entirely convincing. As a surface phenomenon it is no doubt correctly explained in terms of physical microstructures. But our perceptual
experience (as a mental state, consciousness) of liquidity, which the analogy is intended to shed light on, seems to remain something of a
mystery.
(4) Ethics/ social philosophy. Searle's attempt to overcome the 'is-ought' dichotomy is commendable but has not satisfied many critics.
They argue that the treatment of promising as an institutionalized fact within a system of constitutive rules, which he claims legitimate
inferences from factual premises to evaluative conclusions, may obscure the 'gap' but does not eliminate it. His commitment to 'real'
values has also been questioned by some philosophers. The notion of institutionalized facts (x counting as y in C) has itself been
criticized and stands or falls with his fundamental concept of collective intentionality. Lastly one might mention that Searle's treatment
of social phenomena would (understandably) be opposed by philosophers who seek to extend covering-law models of explanation to the
social sciences.
KRIPKE
(b. 1940)
ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY
A child prodigy, Saul Kripke was producing outstanding papers in his teens before completing his formal education in mathematics at
Harvard University. He has taught at Rockefeller, Princeton and Harvard and has held visiting positions at Columbia, Cornell, University
of California at Berkeley and UCLA. He has also been the John Locke Lecturer at Oxford, and from 1977-83 was A. D. White Professor-
at-Large at Cornell. He was appointed Emeritus Professor at Princeton in 1998. Latterly he has been teaching at the CUNY Graduate
Center.
CRITICAL SUMMARY
The key features of Kripke's contribution to the philosophy of language are (1) his account of names as rigid designators and not clusters
of definite descriptions; and (2) his view that there are necessary a posteriori and contingent a priori truths. Both these claims are
contentious and continue to be debated vigorously.
(1) Some philosophers have questioned what the referent of a rigid designator actually is what the 'essential' properties of an
individual are, whereby, for example, Aristotle would have been the same individual even if, per contra, he had not been the tutor of
Alexander but, say, the tutor of the Emperor of China. Appeals to origins, internal structure, and the like might be supposed to lead to an
infinite regress. Critics have argued that once 'Aristotle' has been associated with a particular cluster of descriptions a different set must
refer to a different individual (without committing us to any denial of freedom of choice whether this is so is of course itself
questionable).
(2) Kripke's acceptance of necessary a posteriori truths is closely connected with the concept of the rigid designator. Since the object
referred to by the rigid designators 'Hesperus' and 'Phosphorus' is, according to Kripke, necessarily self-identical, the identity statement
is a posteriori necessary. However, it might be countered that necessity for Kripke is de re and not de dicto; and while the discovery that
Hesperus and Phosphorus are both names for the same object Venus is an empirical one, it can still be argued that
the statement 'Hesperus is Phosphorus' is a priori necessary in the de dicto sense, Kripke's 'necessity' not being applicable to statements.
It is because a given truth may be supposed to be de re necessary that the language in which the truth is communicated is de
dicto necessary: but the latter is then known a priori given, pace Kripke, that proper names have 'meanings' or can be expressed as
meaningful definite descriptions.