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Getting Things Right
 Getting Things Right
Fittingness, Reasons, and Value

C O N O R M C H U G H A N D J O N AT H A N WAY
 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the
University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing
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© Conor McHugh and Jonathan Way 2022
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
First Edition published in 2022
Impression: 1
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You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same
condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2022937301
ISBN 978–0–19–881032–2
ebook ISBN 978–0–19–253827–7
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198810322.001.0001
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Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only.
Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website
referenced in this work.
 Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Reasons
2 Fittingness First
3 Preliminaries
3.1 Strategy and Limits
3.2 Ontology of Reasons
3.3 Normativity
3.4 Constitutive Accounts
3.5 Plan of the Book

1. Reasons
1 Introduction
2 Roles and Features of Reasons: Desiderata for a
Constitutive Account
3 Some Theories of Reasons
3.1 Ought-Based Theories
3.1.1 Reasons as Explanations of Oughts
3.1.2 Reasons as Evidence of Oughts
3.2 Value-Based Theories
3.3 Primitivism
4 Reasons as Premises of Good Reasoning
4.1 The Account
4.2 Attractions
4.3 Developing the Account
 4.3.1 Conative and Epistemic Conditions
4.3.2 Objective and Subjective Reasons
5 Challenges
5.1 Shouldn’t Good Reasoning Be Understood in Terms of
Reasons?
5.2 Further Challenges
6 Conclusion

2. Good Reasoning
1 Introduction
2 Clarifications and Desiderata
3 The Fittingness View
4 Other Things Equal and Normality
5 Objections
5.1 Reasoning to the Belief that a Fittingness Condition
Obtains
5.2 Reasoning from Believing a Means is not Choiceworthy
to Believing It’s Not Necessary
5.3 Necessarily Fitting Responses, Opaque Necessary
Connections
6 Back to Reasons
6.1 First Objection: Very Weak Reasons for Action
6.2 Second Objection: Irrelevant Considerations
6.3 Third Objection: Bare Testimony
6.4 First Implication: The Guidance Condition
6.5 Second Implication: Incentives for Attitudes
7 Conclusion
Appendix 1Modelling Fittingness-Preservation
Appendix 2Structural Features of Reasons

3. Fittingness
1 Introduction
2 Examples of Fittingness
 3 Fittingness and Deontic Status
3.1 Clarifications
3.2 Four Marks
3.2.1 Insensitivity to Incentives
3.2.2 Strength
3.2.3 Absences
3.2.4 Objectivity
4 Fittingness and Reasons
4.1 Reasons Accounts of Fittingness
4.2 Incentives
4.3 Further Problems
4.4 Fittingness and the Balance of Reasons
5 What Makes Responses Fitting?
5.1 Fittingness Conditions
5.2 Fitting Belief
5.3 Fitting Intention
5.4 Fitting Desires and Emotions
6 Conclusion

4. Value
1 Introduction
2 Preliminaries
3 Attractions of Norm-Attitude Accounts
3.1 Between Primitivism and Subjectivism
3.2 Generalizing: Specific Values, Attributive Good, Good-
For
3.3 Norms and Values
4 The Wrong Kind of Reason Problem
4.1 Wrong-Kind Reasons and Buck-Passing
4.2 Wrong-Kind Reasons and the Fitting-Attitude Account
5 The Partiality Problem
5.1 The Problem
 5.2 The Buck-Passers’ Response
5.3 A Fitting-Attitude Solution to the Partiality Problem
5.4 Related Challenges
6 Conclusion

5. The Explanatory Role of Reasons I: The Weights of Reasons

1 Introduction
2 The Simple Approach
3 The Defeasibility Approach
3.1 Introducing the Approach
3.2 Weights and Defeasible Reasoning: Outweighing
3.3 Weights and Defeasible Reasoning: Generalizing
4 Placing Weight
5 Applying the Account
5.1 Simple Outweighing
5.2 Incomparability and Equal Weight
5.3 Failure of Additivity
5.4 Holism I: Attenuating and Disabling
5.5 Holism II: Intensifying and Enabling
5.6 Are Conditions and Modifiers Reasons? Are Disabled
Reasons Reasons?
6 Conclusion
6. The Explanatory Role of Reasons II: From Weights to Deontic
Status
1 Introduction
2 Overall Strength and Reasons Against
2.1 An Account of Overall Strength, and a Worry
2.2 Reasons Against as Reasons for Absences
2.2.1 Reasons for Absences
2.2.2 Absences, Fittingness, and Reasoning
2.3 Reasons Against as Reasons for Alternatives
3 Strength Amended
 4 From Overall Strength to Deontic Status
5 The Balancing Asymmetry
6 Pointless Responses
7 Reasons’ Explanatory Role
8 Conclusion

7. Reasons for Belief, Action, and Emotions

1 Introduction
2 Reasons for Belief
2.1 Perceptual Reasons
2.2 Weak Reasons, Lottery Reasons
2.3 Reasons for Credences
3 Reasons for Action
3.1 The Problem of Reasons for Action and a Solution
3.2 Two Objections
3.3 The Response Condition
4 Reasons for Emotions
4.1 Emotions and Reasoning
4.2 A Challenge to Reasons for Emotions
5 Conclusion
Conclusion

Bibliography
Index
 Acknowledgements

The ideas that were to become this book were first formulated in the
summer of 2012. During the long journey from those first inchoate
ideas, we have benefited from the feedback and encouragement of
many people, to all of whom we are very grateful. They include
Sophie Archer, Sam Asarnow, Olivia Bailey, Selim Berker, Davor
Bodrožić, John Brunero, Richard Chappell, Jean-Marie Chevalier,
Justin D’Arms, Tyler Doggett, Fabian Dorsch (1974–2017), Tom
Dougherty, Julien Dutant, Luke Elson, Pascal Engel, Davide Fassio,
Giulia Felappi, Suki Finn, Guy Fletcher, Daniel Fogal, Magnus Frei,
Jan Gertken, Javier González de Prado Salas, Marie Guillot, Grace
Helton, Frank Hoffman, Brad Hooker, Ulf Hlobil, Chris Howard,
Thomas Hurka, Benjamin Kiesewetter, Uriah Kriegel, St.John
Lambert, Dave Langlois, Woo Ram Lee, Yair Levy, Clayton Littlejohn,
Arturs Logins, Errol Lord, Susanne Mantel, Beri Marušić, Miriam
McCormick, Anne Meylan, Jonas Olson, Hille Paakkunainen, David
Plunkett, Meret Polzer, Franziska Poprawe, Joëlle Proust, Wlodek
Rabinowicz, Andrew Reisner, Susanna Rinard, Debbie Roberts, Simon
Robertson, Rich Rowland, Nils Säfström, Eva Schmidt, Thomas
Schmidt, Mark Schroeder, Kieran Setiya, David Shoemaker, Matthew
Silverstein, Martin Smith, Daniel Star, Philip Stratton-Lake, Christine
Tappolet, Naomi Thompson, Josefa Toribio, Lee Walters, Ralph
Wedgwood, and Daniel Wodak.
A version of the whole manuscript was discussed by the
Normativity Reading Group at Southampton in 2019–20, and by a
Princeton-Humboldt Graduate Seminar co-organized by Thomas
Schmidt and Michael Smith in 2021. In each case we received
extensive, searching and constructive feedback. We also received
detailed and helpful written comments on the whole manuscript
from Philip Fox and—as a then-anonymous reviewer for OUP—Justin
Snedegar. These comments all led to significant improvements.
Material from the book has been presented in various places, too
numerous to list, over the years. The book has benefited a great
deal from the helpful comments and discussion on these occasions.
There are doubtless many others besides those mentioned above
who have provided feedback. We are no less grateful to them, and
we apologize for their omission.
Special thanks are due to our Southampton colleagues Alex
Gregory, Brian McElwee, Kurt Sylvan, and Daniel Whiting, with whom
we have discussed material and issues from this book over many
years. Without such insightful and generous interlocutors we would
have produced a much worse book. More generally, our department
at Southampton has been a tremendously stimulating, supportive,
and collegial environment for this research. We are grateful to all our
colleagues for making that the case.
Our editor at OUP, Peter Momtchiloff, was supportive and patient
throughout the long development of this project. Many thanks to
him. Thanks also to Saranya Ravi, our production manager, and Atus
Mariqueo-Russell, who prepared the index.
Our research has been supported by several institutions and
funders. The Arts and Humanities Research Council funded the
project ‘Normativity: Epistemic and Practical’ (2014–16, grant
number AH/K008188/1) at the University of Southampton, during
which central parts of the research for the book took shape. We
were also lucky enough to spend periods of research leave at other
institutions. Conor McHugh spent part of 2014–15 as a visiting
researcher with the Logos group at the University of Barcelona.
Jonathan Way spent two weeks in June 2018 at the Humboldt
University of Berlin, funded by the Erasumus+ programme, and
2018–19 as a Murphy Fellow at Tulane University. We are grateful to
these institutions for these invaluable opportunities.
Parts of the book include or are based on material from the
following previously published works:
 Fittingness First. Ethics, 126, 575–606 (2016). Copyright The
University of Chicago, DOI 10.1086/684712.
What is Good Reasoning? Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research, 96, 153–174 (2018). DOI 10.1111/phpr.12299.
All Reasons Are Fundamentally for Attitudes. Journal of Ethics and
Social Philosophy, 21, 151–174 (2022). DOI
10.26556/jesp.v21i2.1341.
Finally, we each want to express thanks of a different kind to
those without whose personal support the writing of this book would
have been, at least, harder and drearier.
Conor McHugh has been helped more than she knows by Marie
Guillot’s inexhaustible kindness, patience, and encouragement. The
arrival of Éilis Guillot McHugh may not have accelerated the
completion of the book, but it certainly made things more fun. It is
Conor’s great good fortune, for which he is humbly grateful, to share
his life with them both. His greatest debt is to his parents, Brianne
and Reggie McHugh. He dedicates his contribution to this book to
them, with love.
Jonathan Way would like to thank Hannah Young. Her love and
support have made the final years of this project—a period of
lockdowns as well as the challenges of completing a book—much
easier, and very much happier. Above all, he is grateful to his family,
and especially his parents, Frances Pitt-Brooke and David Way. He
dedicates his contribution to this book to them, with love.
 Introduction

This book has two main aims. The first, narrower, aim is to develop
and defend a constitutive account of normative reasons as premises
of good reasoning. The second, broader, aim is to develop and
defend a fittingness-first account of the structure of the normative
domain, of which the account of normative reasons is a part. In this
Introduction we explain these aims and how we plan to execute
them. In §1 and §2 we explain the first and second aims
respectively. In §3 we make some points about our strategy, set out
some assumptions, and provide a plan for the rest of the book.

1 Reasons
It’s been a long day, and now it’s nearly 6 p.m. The match starts at 6
p.m. and you arranged to watch it with your friend, at the bar round
the corner. Its being nearly 6 p.m. is thus a reason for you to believe
that the match is about to start, leave the office, and be glad the
day is over.
That it’s nearly 6 p.m. is here a normative reason. In the familiar
gloss, it is a consideration that counts in favour of certain responses.
We might also say it supports or helps justify or makes a case for
these responses. Normative reasons should be distinguished from
motivating reasons: considerations for which, or in light of which, we
respond. Motivating reasons can be normative reasons—you might
decide to leave the office for the reason that it’s nearly 6 p.m. But
they needn’t be—your reason for believing that the coin will come up
heads might be that it came up tails last time, but that is no reason
to believe this. Normative reasons must also be distinguished from
explanatory reasons: considerations that explain an outcome. Your
low blood sugar levels might help explain why you snapped at your
partner, without justifying your doing so. Hereafter, by ‘reasons’ we
mean normative reasons unless we indicate otherwise.1
Reasons have had a lot of attention recently. This makes sense,
since they play significant roles. Reasons help determine deontic
status—what you ought and may do: it might be that you ought to
leave the office, despite the work you have to finish, given your
arrangement with your friend. Reasons are relevant to reasoning: in
deciding whether to leave the office, you should take into account
that it’s nearly 6 p.m., and thus that the match is about to start. And
reasons are connected to value: insofar as there’s reason to be glad
your day is over, it is good that your day is over. Understanding
reasons thus seems important for understanding all of these things.
The first aim of the book, we said, is to develop a constitutive
account of reasons. This is an account of what it is for a
consideration to be a reason.2 More precisely, it is an account of
what it is for the relation of being a reason to obtain between a
consideration (such as that it’s nearly 6 p.m.), a type of response
(such as believing that the match is about to start), and an agent
(such as you).3 We will normally express this more simply by talking
about what reasons are.
Constitutive accounts should be distinguished from substantive
accounts. A substantive account tells us which considerations are
reasons for what, and why. For instance, a broadly utilitarian
substantive account of reasons for action might say that all reasons
to act are considerations which help explain why acting in some way
would promote wellbeing. A constitutive account may have
substantive implications, but it may also leave substantive questions
largely open. Suppose, for instance, that to be a reason is to be a
consideration that helps explain why you ought to respond in a
certain way (Broome 2004, 2013). This doesn’t yet tell us which
considerations are reasons for what. It depends, among other
things, on what you ought to do. We say more about constitutive
accounts below (§3.4).
Our account says that reasons are premises of good reasoning. A
little more precisely, for a consideration to be a reason to respond in
a certain way is for that consideration to be a (potential) premise of
good reasoning to that response. For example, for the consideration
that it’s nearly 6 p.m. to be a reason to believe that the match is
about to start, and to leave the office, is for it to be good reasoning
to think ‘it’s nearly 6pm, so the match is about to start, so I’ll leave
the office’. On our account, then, the role of reasons in reasoning is
central to their nature: to be a reason is to be suited to play a
certain role in reasoning.
This requires much unpacking, which will come in Chapter 1. As
we explain there, this account has significant attractions. It offers a
unified account of reasons for different responses—most obviously,
beliefs and actions. It explains notable features of reasons, such as
why only certain things—e.g. beliefs and actions, but not headaches
or height—are subject to reasons. It allows that substantive
accounts of reasons for different responses may be very different.
And it straightforwardly explains the role that reasons play in
reasoning.
The account also raises many questions. First, good reasoning
from mistaken beliefs or intentions does not correspond to reasons.
‘It’s nearly 6 p.m., so the match is about to start’ is good reasoning
regardless of whether it’s nearly 6 p.m. But if it’s not nearly 6 p.m.—
perhaps you forgot that the clocks went back—then its being nearly
6 p.m. is not a reason to leave the office now. So, what constraints
does the account need to place on the premises of good reasoning?
Second, what is good reasoning, anyway? Third, how does the
account explain the role that reasons play in determining deontic
status? Fourth, how does the account explain the connections
between reasons and value? Fifth, how does it apply to responses
which might seem not to feature in reasoning, such as emotions?
The key to answering many of these questions, we will suggest,
is the notion of a fitting attitude: an attitude that gets things right.
And this brings us to our second aim.

2 Fittingness First
That it’s nearly 6 p.m. is a reason to believe the match is about to
start, leave the office, and be glad the day is over. Perhaps because
of this, you ought to respond in these ways, or would be rational to
do so. It’s also good that the day is over. The bar you’re heading to
might be a good one for watching the match. The friend you’re
meeting might be a delightful fellow.
These are all normative claims. If true, they state normative facts,
involving normative properties—for example, being a reason, being
what you ought to do, being rational, being good, being a good bar
to watch the match in, being delightful. It’s hard to explain what
normativity is, or what distinguishes the normative from the non-
normative. But we have a clear enough sense that there’s an
important distinction between claims like the above and claims like
that it’s nearly 6 p.m., or that your friend is waiting at the bar, or
that what you’ll soon be drinking contains alcohol.4 It’s enough for
our purposes to pick out the normative by reference to some of
these paradigmatic cases. (This is not to deny, of course, that it can
be unclear whether something is normative.) We also have a sense
of some distinctions within the normative domain. For instance, the
good and the delightful seem to group together as evaluative
properties; being what you ought to do and being what you may do
group together as deontic properties.5
Our second aim is to give an account of the structure of the
normative domain: of how the normative fits together. This is an
account of the dependence relations within the normative domain.
There are lots of possibilities here. It could be that no normative
property depends on any other—the normative domain is ‘flat’. Or
perhaps it could be that all or some normative properties are
mutually dependent—the normative domain is circular, or an
interlocking cluster.6 The most common idea, though, is that the
normative domain has a foundational structure: there are some
normative properties on which all others depend, and which do not
depend on other normative properties. These properties are
normatively basic: they come ‘first’ in the normative domain. (They
may not be basic simpliciter—that is, they may depend on non-
normative properties.) Our view will be of this form. The kind of
dependence we will be most interested in is that associated with
constitutive accounts (more on this in §3.4).
It is, we think, an intrinsically interesting question how the
normative domain is structured. (It is an analogue of familiar
philosophical questions about how the physical, or mental, or
mathematical, or modal domains are structured, and a generalization
of familiar questions about how the epistemic and moral domains
are structured—for instance, is the good prior to the right or
conversely?) It is also important for its bearing on questions about
how the normative fits with other domains. Metanormative views
often proceed by arguing that some normative properties are
normatively foundational, and then arguing that these foundational
properties can in turn be accounted for in non-normative terms.7
This can work only if the structure of the normative domain is
correctly identified. Tracing the structure of the normative domain
has important side benefits too. For instance, it requires us to
carefully distinguish different normative properties, which is often
crucial for assessing arguments and theories in normative
philosophy.
On the view we develop, there is a single normative property,
fittingness, which is normatively basic, and on which all other
normative properties depend. Thus, fittingness is first in the
normative domain. (Again, this does not imply that fittingness is
basic simpliciter; we take no stand on this issue.) We develop this
view by defending constitutive accounts of several normative
properties whose only normative element is fittingness.8
What is fittingness? This question will be addressed in detail later
(especially Chapter 3). But the idea is familiar enough. When you
admire, fear, intend, or believe, your attitude can be fitting or
unfitting, depending on its object. It seems fitting to admire
Mandela, fear an onrushing tiger, intend to phone your mother on
her birthday, and believe that the Seine flows through Paris. As we
will also sometimes put it, in having these attitudes you would be
getting things right. It is not fitting to admire Idi Amin, fear an
onrushing kitten, intend to ignore your mother on her birthday, or
believe that the Thames flows through Paris. In having these
attitudes you would be getting things wrong. Fittingness—this way
of getting things right in your responses—is, we will argue, distinct
from doing what you ought or may do, or what there is reason to
do. It can thus form the basis for constitutive accounts of these
properties.
We can now see, in outline, how our aims align. Reasons, we say,
are premises of good reasoning. But not all premises of good
reasoning are reasons: good reasoning from false beliefs or mistaken
intentions does not correspond to reasons. How should this be
accommodated? And what is good reasoning, anyway? We answer
by appeal to fittingness. Reasons are premises of good reasoning
from fitting responses—e.g. from true beliefs and intentions for the
choiceworthy. Good reasoning is, roughly, reasoning which preserves
fittingness, other things equal. That is, good reasoning is such as to
take you to a fitting response, if you begin from fitting responses, at
least other things equal. We thus end up with an account of reasons
in terms of fittingness: roughly, reasons are premises of fittingness-
preserving reasoning from fitting responses (Chapters 1 and 2).
Why does this support fittingness-first? As noted, reasons help
determine the deontic status of a response—whether you ought or
may so respond. This makes it independently plausible to think that
deontic status should be understood in terms of reasons. We
develop a detailed account of the—surprisingly under-theorized—
relation between reasons and deontic status in Chapters 5 and 6. It
is also independently plausible to understand evaluative properties in
terms of fittingness. For something to be delightful, or admirable, or
loathsome, is for it to be fitting to delight in, admire, or loathe. For
something to be good is for it to be desirable—fitting to desire. We
develop such a view of value in Chapter 4.
When we put these views together, we thus end up with the
following picture (where the arrows mean ‘depends on’).9

Finally for this section, we note that our two aims need not stand or
fall together. It is possible to develop a constitutive account of
reasons as premises of good reasoning without accepting fittingness-
first, and conversely.10 Moreover, the way in which we develop our
constitutive account of reasons does not require fittingness-first—for
instance, one might accept that account while denying that
evaluative properties are to be understood in terms of fittingness.
Nonetheless, we hope to show that combining the two aims is a
natural, plausible, and fruitful approach.

3 Preliminaries
Before going further, some preliminary matters. In §3.1 we make
some remarks about our strategy and ambitions. In §3.2–3.4 we
highlight some assumptions. (Readers less interested in the fine
detail could safely skip these subsections.) §3.5 sets out the plan for
the book.

3.1 Strategy and Limits

As explained, our aim is to develop and defend accounts of reasons
and the structure of the normative domain. But in respect of both
development and defence, our aim should be qualified. We neither
present comprehensive accounts of reasons and the normative
domain nor try to conclusively establish what we do offer.
There are various normative properties we won’t give any account
of. These include rationality, responsibility, rights and obligations,
and thick evaluative properties, such as courage, justice, and
crudeness. There are others we discuss only briefly, such as specific
evaluative properties, like the admirable, the regrettable, and the
amusing (Chapter 4). In this way, we shall offer only the beginnings
of a fittingness-first account of the normative domain.
Our account is also incomplete in that we focus primarily on
reasons for belief and action, which we take to be equivalent to
reasons to intend so to act. The idea that reasons are premises of
good reasoning is probably most tempting in this context. It thus
makes sense to develop such a view by focusing on these cases.
However, we do address questions about reasons for other
responses at various points in the book, especially Chapter 7. We
also recognize that the presumed equivalence between reasons for
action and reasons for intention is contentious. We address this in
Chapter 7, §3.
Our defence of our views is also limited. Establishing them
conclusively, or even showing them to be the most plausible overall,
would require systematic examination of actual and possible rivals.
Our aim is more modest: to present our account as a serious
contender. We do this by explaining attractions of our views and
advantages over salient alternatives, for instance by showing how
Another random document with
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straight line and then a spiral, as it falls? Is it that the air first presses
equally on the two sides and supports it, and afterwards presses on
one side more?” “Why 48 is it difficult to distinguish a musical note
from the octave above? Is it that proportion stands in the place of
equality?” It must be allowed that these are very vague and
worthless surmises; for even if we were, as some commentators
have done, to interpret some of them so as to agree with sound
philosophy, we should still be unable to point out, in this author’s
works, any clear or permanent apprehension of the general
principles which such an interpretation implies.
43 Mech. Prob. 4.

44 Ib. 18.

45 Ib. 31.

46 Ib. 13.

47 Περὶ Ἄψυχα. 11.

48 Περὶ Ἁρμον. 14.

Thus the Aristotelian physics cannot be considered as otherwise

than a complete failure. It collected no general laws from facts; and
consequently, when it tried to explain facts, it had no principles which
were of any avail.

The same may be said of the physical speculations of the other

schools of philosophy. They arrived at no doctrines from which they
could deduce, by sound reasoning, such facts as they saw; though
they 82 often venture so far to trust their principles as to infer from
them propositions beyond the domain of sense. Thus, the principle
that each element seeks its own place, led to the doctrine that, the
place of fire being the highest, there is, above the air, a Sphere of
Fire—of which doctrine the word Empyrean, used by our poets, still
conveys a reminiscence. The Pythagorean tenet that ten is a perfect
number, 49 led some persons to assume that the heavenly bodies are
in number ten; and as nine only were known to them, they asserted
that there was an antichthon, or counter-earth, on the other side of
the sun, invisible to us. Their opinions respecting numerical ratios,
led to various other speculations concerning the distances and
positions of the heavenly bodies: and as they had, in other cases,
found a connection between proportions of distance and musical
notes, they assumed, on this suggestion, the music of the spheres.
49 Arist. Metaph. i. 5.

Although we shall look in vain in the physical philosophy of the

Greek Schools for any results more valuable than those just
mentioned, we shall not be surprised to find, recollecting how much
an admiration for classical antiquity has possessed the minds of
men, that some writers estimate their claims much more highly than
they are stated here. Among such writers we may notice Dutens,
who, in 1766, published his “Origin of the Discoveries attributed to
the Moderns; in which it is shown that our most celebrated
Philosophers have received the greatest part of their knowledge from
the Works of the Ancients.” The thesis of this work is attempted to be
proved, as we might expect, by very large interpretations of the
general phrases used by the ancients. Thus, when Timæus, in
Plato’s dialogue, says of the Creator of the world, 50 “that he infused
into it two powers, the origins of motions, both of that of the same
thing and of that of different things;” Dutens 51 finds in this a clear
indication of the projectile and attractive forces of modern science.
And in some of the common declamation of the Pythagoreans and
Platonists concerning the general prevalence of numerical relations
in the universe, he discovers their acquaintance with the law of the
inverse square of the distance by which gravitation is regulated,
though he allows 52 that it required all the penetration of Newton and
his followers to detect this law in the scanty fragments by which it is
transmitted.
50 Tim. 96.

51 3d ed. p. 83.

52 Ib. p. 88.

Argument of this kind is palpably insufficient to cover the failure of

the Greek attempts at a general physical philosophy; or rather we 83
may say, that such arguments, since they are as good as can be
brought in favor of such an opinion, show more clearly how entire the
failure was. I proceed now to endeavor to point out its causes.

Sect. 2.—Cause of the Failure of the Greek Physical Philosophy.

The cause of the failure of so many of the attempts of the Greeks

to construct physical science is so important, that we must endeavor
to bring it into view here; though the full development of such
subjects belongs rather to the Philosophy of Induction. The subject
must, at present, be treated very briefly.

I will first notice some errors which may naturally occur to the
reader’s mind, as possible causes of failure, but which, we shall be
able to show, were not the real reasons in this case.

The cause of failure was not the neglect of facts. It is often said
that the Greeks disregarded experience, and spun their philosophy
out of their own thoughts alone; and this is supposed by many to be
their essential error. It is, no doubt, true, that the disregard of
experience is a phrase which may be so interpreted as to express
almost any defect of philosophical method; since coincidence with
experience is requisite to the truth of all theory. But if we fix a more
precise sense on our terms, I conceive it may be shown that the
Greek philosophy did, in its opinions, recognize the necessity and
paramount value of observations; did, in its origin, proceed upon
observed facts; and did employ itself to no small extent in classifying
and arranging phenomena. We must endeavor to illustrate these
assertions, because it is important to show that these steps alone do
not necessarily lead to science.

1. The acknowledgment of experience as the main ground of

physical knowledge is so generally understood to be a distinguishing
feature of later times, that it may excite surprise to find that Aristotle,
and other ancient philosophers, not only asserted in the most
pointed manner that all our knowledge must begin from experience,
but also stated in language much resembling the habitual
phraseology of the most modern schools of philosophizing, that
particular facts must be collected; that from these, general principles
must be obtained by induction; and that these principles, when of the
most general kind, are axioms. A few passages will show this.

“The way 53 must be the same,” says Aristotle, in speaking of the

rules of reasoning, “with respect to philosophy, as it is with respect to
84 any art or science whatever; we must collect the facts, and the
things to which the facts happen, in each subject, and provide as
large a supply of these as possible.” He then proceeds to say that
“we are not to look at once at all this collected mass, but to consider
small and definite portions” . . . “And thus it is the office of
observation to supply principles in each subject; for instance,
astronomical observation supplies the principles of astronomical
science. For the phenomena being properly assumed, the
astronomical demonstrations were from these discovered. And the
same applies to every art and science. So that if we take the facts
(τὰ ὑπάρχοντα) belonging to each subject, it is our task to mark out
clearly the course of the demonstrations. For if in our natural history
(κατὰ τὴν ἱστορίαν) we have omitted nothing of the facts and
properties which belong to the subject, we shall learn what we can
demonstrate and what we cannot.”
53 Anal. Prior. i. 30.

These facts, τὰ ὑπάρχοντα, he, at other times, includes in the term

sensation. Thus, he says, 54 “It is obvious that if any sensation is
wanting, there must be also some knowledge wanting which we are
thus prevented from having, since we arrive at knowledge either by
induction or by demonstration. Demonstration proceeds from
universal propositions, Induction from particulars. But we cannot
have universal theoretical propositions except from induction; and
we cannot make inductions without having sensation; for sensation
has to do with particulars.”
54 Anal. Post. i. 18.

In another place, 55 after stating that principles must be prior to,

and better known than conclusions, he distinguishes such principles
into absolutely prior, and prior relative to us: “The prior principles,
relative to us, are those which are nearer to the sensation; but the
principles absolutely prior are those which are more remote from the
sensation. The most general principles are the more remote, the
more particular are nearer. The general principles which are
necessary to knowledge are axioms.”
55 Ib. i. 2.

We may add to these passages, that in which he gives an account

of the way in which Leucippus was led to the doctrine of atoms. After
describing the opinions of some earlier philosophers, he says, 56
“Thus, proceeding in violation of sensation, and disregarding it,
because, as they held, they must follow reason, some came to the
conclusion that the universe was one, and infinite, and at rest. As it
appeared, however, that though this ought to be by reasoning, it 85
would go near to madness to hold such opinions in practice (for no
one was ever so mad as to think fire and ice to be one), Leucippus,
therefore, pursued a line of reasoning which was in accordance with
sensation, and which was not irreconcilable with the production and
decay, the motion and multitude of things.” It is obvious that the
school to which Leucippus belonged (the Eclectic) must have been,
at least in its origin, strongly impressed with the necessity of bringing
its theories into harmony with the observed course of nature.
56 De Gen. et Cor. i. 8.

2. Nor was this recognition of the fundamental value of experience

a mere profession. The Greek philosophy did, in its beginning,
proceed upon observation. Indeed it is obvious that the principles
which it adopted were, in the first place, assumed in order to account
for some classes of facts, however imperfectly they might answer
their purpose. The principle of things seeking their own places, was
invented in order to account for the falling and floating of bodies.
Again, Aristotle says, that heat is that which brings together things of
the same kind, cold is that which brings together things whether of
the same or of different kinds: it is plain that in this instance he
intended by his principle to explain some obvious facts, as the
freezing of moist substances, and the separation of heterogeneous
things by fusion; for, as he adds, if fire brings together things which
are akin, it will separate those which are not akin. It would be easy to
illustrate the remark further, but its truth is evident from the nature of
the case; for no principles could be accepted for a moment, which
were the result of an arbitrary caprice of the mind, and which were
not in some measure plausible, and apparently confirmed by facts.

But the works of Aristotle show, in another way, how unjust it

would be to accuse him of disregarding facts. Many large treatises of
his consist almost entirely of collections of facts, as for instance,
those “On Colors,” “On Sounds,” and the collection of Problems to
which we have already referred; to say nothing of the numerous
collection of facts bearing on natural history and physiology, which
form a great portion of his works, and are even now treasuries of
information. A moment’s reflection will convince us that the physical
sciences of our own times, for example. Mechanics and
Hydrostatics, are founded almost entirely upon facts with which the
ancients were as familiar as we are. The defect of their philosophy,
therefore, wherever it may lie, consists neither in the speculative
depreciation of the value of facts, nor in the practical neglect of their
use.

3. Nor again, should we hit upon the truth, if we were to say that 86
Aristotle, and other ancient philosophers, did indeed collect facts; but
that they took no steps in classifying and comparing them; and that
thus they failed to obtain from them any general knowledge. For, in
reality, the treatises of Aristotle which we have mentioned, are as
remarkable for the power of classifying and systematizing which they
exhibit, as for the industry shown in the accumulation. But it is not
classification of facts merely which can lead us to knowledge, except
we adopt that special arrangement, which, in each case, brings into
view the principles of the subject. We may easily show how
unprofitable an arbitrary or random classification is, however orderly
and systematic it may be.

For instance, for a long period all unusual fiery appearances in the
sky were classed together as meteors. Comets, shooting-stars, and
globes of fire, and the aurora borealis in all its forms, were thus
grouped together, and classifications of considerable extent and
minuteness were proposed with reference to these objects. But this
classification was of a mixed and arbitrary kind. Figure, color, motion,
duration, were all combined as characters, and the imagination lent
its aid, transforming these striking appearances into fiery swords and
spears, bears and dragons, armies and chariots. The facts so
classified were, notwithstanding, worthless; and would not have
been one jot the less so, had they and their classes been ten times
as numerous as they were. No rule or law that would stand the test
of observation was or could be thus discovered. Such classifications
have, therefore, long been neglected and forgotten. Even the ancient
descriptions of these objects of curiosity are unintelligible, or
unworthy of trust, because the spectators had no steady conception
of the usual order of such phenomena. For, however much we may
fear to be misled by preconceived opinions, the caprices of
imagination distort our impressions far more than the anticipations of
reason. In this case men had, indeed we may say with regard to
many of these meteors, they still have, no science: not for want of
facts, nor even for want of classification of facts; but because the
classification was one in which no real principle was contained.
 4. Since, as we have said before, two things are requisite to
science,—Facts and Ideas; and since, as we have seen. Facts were
not wanting in the physical speculations of the ancients, we are
naturally led to ask, Were they then deficient in Ideas? Was there a
want among them of mental activity, and logical connection of
thought? But it is so obvious that the answer to this inquiry must be
in the negative, that we need not dwell upon it. No one who knows
any thing of the 87 history of the ancient Greek mind, can question,
that in acuteness, in ingenuity, in the power of close and distinct
reasoning, they have never been surpassed. The common opinion,
which considers the defect of their philosophical character to reside
rather in the exclusive activity of such qualities, than in the absence
of them, is at least so far just.

5. We come back again, therefore, to the question, What was the

radical and fatal defect in the physical speculations of the Greek
philosophical schools?

To this I answer: The defect was, that though they had in their
possession Facts and Ideas, the Ideas were not distinct and
appropriate to the Facts.

The peculiar characteristics of scientific ideas, which I have

endeavored to express by speaking of them as distinct and
appropriate to the facts, must be more fully and formally set forth,
when we come to the philosophy of the subject. In the mean time,
the reader will probably have no difficulty in conceiving that, for each
class of Facts, there is some special set of Ideas, by means of which
the facts can be included in general scientific truths; and that these
Ideas, which may thus be termed appropriate, must be possessed
with entire distinctness and clearness, in order that they may be
successfully applied. It was the want of Ideas having this reference
to material phenomena, which rendered the ancient philosophers,
with very few exceptions, helpless and unsuccessful speculators on
physical subjects.

This must be illustrated by one or two examples. One of the facts

which Aristotle endeavors to explain is this; that when the sun’s light
passes through a hole, whatever be the form of the hole, the bright
image, if formed at any considerable distance from the hole, is
round, instead of imitating the figure of the hole, as shadows
resemble their objects in form. We shall easily perceive this
appearance to be a necessary consequence of the circular figure of
the sun, if we conceive light to be diffused from the luminary by
means of straight rays proceeding from every point of the sun’s disk
and passing through every point within the boundary of the hole. By
attending to the consequences of this mode of conception, it will be
seen that each point of the hole will be the vertex of a double cone of
rays which has the sun’s disk for its base on one side and an image
of the sun on the other; and the figure of the image of the hole will be
determined by supposing a series of equal bright circles, images of
the sun, to be placed along the boundary of an image equal to the
hole itself. The figure of the image thus determined will partake of
the form of the hole, and 88 of the circular form of the sun’s image:
but these circular images become larger and larger as they are
further from the hole, while the central image of the hole remains
always of the original size; and thus at a considerable distance from
the hole, the trace of the hole’s form is nearly obliterated, and the
image is nearly a perfect circle. Instead of this distinct conception of
a cone of rays which has the sun’s disk for its basis, Aristotle has the
following loose conjecture. 57 “Is it because light is emitted in a
conical form; and of a cone, the base is a circle; so that on whatever
the rays of the sun fall, they appear more circular?” And thus though
he applies the notion of rays to this problem, he possesses this
notion so indistinctly that his explanation is of no value. He does not
introduce into his explanation the consideration of the sun’s circular
figure, and is thus prevented from giving a true account of this very
simple optical phenomenon.
57 Problem. 15, ὁσα μαθηματίκης, &c.

6. Again, to pass to a more extensive failure: why was it that

Aristotle, knowing the property of the lever, and many other
mechanical truths, was unable to form them into a science of
mechanics, as Archimedes afterwards did?

The reason was, that, instead of considering rest and motion

directly, and distinctly, with reference to the Idea of Cause, that is
Force, he wandered in search of reasons among other ideas and
notions, which could not be brought into steady connection with the
facts;—the ideas of properties of circles, of proportions of velocities,
—the notions of “strange” and “common,” of “natural” and
“unnatural.” Thus, in the Proem to his Mechanical Problems, after
stating some of the difficulties which he has to attack, he says, “Of all
such cases, the circle contains the principle of the cause. And this is
what might be looked for; for it is nothing absurd, if something
wonderful is derived from something more wonderful still. Now the
most wonderful thing is, that opposites should be combined; and the
circle is constituted of such combinations of opposites. For it is
constructed by a stationary point and a moving line, which are
contrary to each other in nature; and hence we may the less be
surprised at the resulting contrarieties. And in the first place, the
circumference of the circle, though a line without breadth, has
opposite qualities; for it is both convex and concave. In the next
place, it has, at the same time, opposite motions, for it moves
forward and backward at the same time. For the circumference,
setting out from any point, comes to the same point again, so 89 that
by a continuous progression, the last point becomes the first. So
that, as was before stated, it is not surprising that the circle should
be the principle of all wonderful properties.”

Aristotle afterwards proceeds to explain more specially how he

applies the properties of the circle in this case. “The reason,” he
says, in his fourth Problem, “why a force, acting at a greater distance
from the fulcrum, moves a weight more easily, is, that it describes a
greater circle.” He had already asserted that when a body at the end
of a lever is put in motion, it may be considered as having two
motions; one in the direction of the tangent, and one in the direction
of the radius; the former motion is, he says, according to nature, the
latter, contrary to nature. Now in the smaller circle, the motion,
contrary to nature, is more considerable than it is in the larger circle.
“Therefore,” he adds, “the mover or weight at the larger arm will be
transferred further by the same force than the weight moved, which
is at the extremity of the shorter arm.”

These loose and inappropriate notions of “natural” and “unnatural”

motions, were unfit to lead to any scientific truths; and, with the
habits of thought which dictated these speculations a perception of
the true grounds of mechanical properties was impossible.

7. Thus, in this instance, the error of Aristotle was the neglect of

the Idea appropriate to the facts, namely, the Idea of Mechanical
Cause, which is Force; and the substitution of vague or inapplicable
notions involving only relations of space or emotions of wonder. The
errors of those who failed similarly in other instances, were of the
same kind. To detail or classify these would lead us too far into the
philosophy of science; since we should have to enumerate the Ideas
which are appropriate, and the various classes of Facts on which the
different sciences are founded,—a task not to be now lightly
undertaken. But it will be perceived, without further explanation, that
it is necessary, in order to obtain from facts any general truth, that
we should apply to them that appropriate Idea, by which permanent
and definite relations are established among them.

In such Ideas the ancients were very poor, and the stunted and
deformed growth of their physical science was the result of this
penury. The Ideas of Space and Time, Number and Motion, they did
indeed possess distinctly; and so far as these went, their science
was tolerably healthy. They also caught a glimpse of the Idea of a
Medium by which the qualities of bodies, as colors and sounds, are
perceived. But the idea of Substance remained barren in their hands;
90 in speculating about elements and qualities, they went the wrong
way, assuming that the properties of Compounds must resemble
those of the Elements which determine them; and their loose notions
of Contrariety never approached the form of those ideas of Polarity,
which, in modern times, regulate many parts of physics and
chemistry.

If this statement should seem to any one to be technical or

arbitrary, we must refer, for the justification of it, to the Philosophy of
Science, of which we hope hereafter to treat. But it will appear, even
from what has been here said, that there are certain Ideas or Forms
of mental apprehension, which may be applied to Facts in such a
manner as to bring into view fundamental principles of science; while
the same Facts, however arrayed or reasoned about, so long as
these appropriate ideas are not employed, cannot give rise to any
exact or substantial knowledge.

[2d Ed.] This account of the cause of failure in the physical

speculations of the ancient Greek philosophers has been objected to
as unsatisfactory. I will offer a few words in explanation of it.

The mode of accounting for the failure of the Greeks in physics is,
in substance;—that the Greeks in their physical speculations fixed
their attention upon the wrong aspects and relations of the
phenomena; and that the aspects and relations in which phenomena
are to be viewed in order to arrive at scientific truths may be
arranged under certain heads, which I have termed Ideas; such as
Space, Time, Number, Cause, Likeness. In every case, there is an
Idea to which the phenomena may be referred, so as to bring into
view the Laws by which they are governed; this Idea I term the
appropriate Idea in such case; and in order that the reference of the
phenomena to the Law may be clearly seen, the Idea must be
distinctly possessed.

Thus the reason of Aristotle’s failure in his attempts at Mechanical

Science is, that he did not refer the facts to the appropriate Idea,
namely Force, the Cause of Motion, but to relations of Space and the
like; that is, he introduces Geometrical instead of Mechanical Ideas.
It may be said that we learn little by being told that Aristotle’s failure
in this and the like cases arose from his referring to the wrong class
of Ideas; or, as I have otherwise expressed it, fixing his attention
upon the wrong aspects and relations of the facts; since, it may be
said, this is only to state in other words that he did fail. But this
criticism is, I think, ill-founded. The account which I have given is not
only a statement that Aristotle, and others who took a like course, did
fail; but also, that they failed in one certain point out of several 91
which are enumerated. They did not fail because they neglected to
observe facts; they did not fail because they omitted to class facts;
they did not fail because they had not ideas to reason from; but they
failed because they did not take the right ideas in each case. And so
long as they were in the wrong in this point, no industry in collecting
facts, or ingenuity in classing them and reasoning about them, could
lead them to solid truth.

Nor is this account of the nature of their mistake without its

instruction for us; although we are not to expect to derive from the
study of their failure any technical rule which shall necessarily guide
us to scientific discovery. For their failure teaches us that, in the
formation of science, an Error in the Ideas is as fatal to the discovery
of Truth as an Error in the Facts; and may as completely impede the
progress of knowledge. I have in Books ii. to x. of the Philosophy,
shown historically how large a portion of the progress of Science
consists in the establishment of Appropriate Ideas as the basis of
each science. Of the two main processes by which science is
constructed, as stated in Book xi. of that work, namely the
Explication of Conceptions and the Colligation of Facts, the former
must precede the latter. In Book xii. chap. 5, of the Philosophy, I
have stated the maxim concerning appropriate Ideas in this form,
that the Idea and the Facts must be homogeneous.

When I say that the failure of the Greeks in physical science arose
from their not employing appropriate Ideas to connect the facts, I do
not use the term “appropriate” in a loose popular sense; but I employ
it as a somewhat technical term, to denote the appropriate Idea, out
of that series of Ideas which have been made (as I have shown in
the Philosophy) the foundation of sciences; namely, Space, Time,
Number, Cause, Likeness, Substance, and the rest. It appears to me
just to say that Aristotle’s failure in his attempts to deal with problems
of equilibrium, arose from his referring to circles, velocities, notions
of natural and unnatural, and the like,—conceptions depending upon
Ideas of Space, of Nature, &c.—which are not appropriate to these
problems, and from his missing the Idea of Mechanical Force or
Pressure, which is the appropriate Idea.

I give this, not as an account of all failures in attempts at science,

but only as the account of such radical and fundamental failures as
this of Aristotle; who, with a knowledge of the facts, failed to connect
them into a really scientific view. If I had to compare rival theories of
a more complex kind, I should not necessarily say that one involved
92 an appropriate Idea and the other did not, though I might judge
one to be true and the other to be false. For instance, in comparing
the emissive and the undulatory theory of light, we see that both
involve the same Idea;—the Idea of a Medium acting by certain
mechanical properties. The question there is, What is the true view
of the mechanism of the Medium?

It may be remarked, however, that the example of Aristotle’s failure

in physics, given in p. 87, namely, his attempted explanation of the
round image of a square hole, is a specimen rather of indistinct than
of inappropriate ideas.

The geometrical explanation of this phenomenon, which I have

there inserted, was given by Maurolycus, and before him, by
Leonardo da Vinci.

We shall, in the next Book, see the influence of the appropriate

general Ideas, in the formation of various sciences. It need only be
observed, before we proceed, that, in order to do full justice to the
physical knowledge of the Greek Schools of philosophy, it is not
necessary to study their course after the time of their founders. Their
fortunes, in respect of such acquisitions as we are now considering,
were not progressive. The later chiefs of the Schools followed the
earlier masters; and though they varied much, they added little. The
Romans adopted the philosophy of their Greek subjects; but they
were always, and, indeed, acknowledged themselves to be, inferior
to their teachers. They were as arbitrary and loose in their ideas as
the Greeks, without possessing their invention, acuteness, and spirit
of system.

In addition to the vagueness which was combined with the more

elevated trains of philosophical speculation among the Greeks, the
Romans introduced into their treatises a kind of declamatory rhetoric,
which arose probably from their forensic and political habits, and
which still further obscured the waning gleams of truth. Yet we may
also trace in the Roman philosophers to whom this charge mostly
applies (Lucretius, Pliny, Seneca), the national vigor and ambition.
There is something Roman in the public spirit and anticipation of
universal empire which they display, as citizens of the intellectual
republic. Though they speak sadly or slightingly of the achievements
of their own generation, they betray a more abiding and vivid belief in
the dignity and destined advance of human knowledge as a whole,
than is obvious among the Greeks.

We must, however, turn back, in order to describe steps of more

definite value to the progress of science than those which we have
hitherto noticed. ~Additional material in the 3rd edition.~
 B O O K II.

HISTORY
OF THE

PHYSICAL SCIENCES
IN

A N C I E N T G R E E C E.
Ναρθηκοπλήρωτον δὲ θηρῶμαι πυρὸς
Πηγὴν κλοπαίαν, ἣ διδάσκαλος τέχνης
Πάσης βροτοῖς πεφῆνε καὶ μέγας πόρος.
Prom. Vinct. 109.

I brought to earth the spark of heavenly fire,

Concealed at first, and small, but spreading soon
Among the sons of men, and burning on,
Teacher of art and use, and fount of power.