Douglas Browning: Course Handouts:
American Philosophy
These
handouts are ordered by topic or course.
Description: From about 1870 to 1925 the conception of experience among empiricists underwent a sea change. The atomistic and spectator's views were replaced by a more holistic and practical view. The phenomenology of experience opened up and considerations of empirical warrant were rethought. The major movers of this shift were Peirce, James, Bergson, and Dewey. Whitehead and Ortega y Gasset, as well as Dewey, continued the development into the 1930's. In this course I want to concentrate on the pragmatist development from Peirce's seed through James' blossom to Dewey's fruit. At each of these stages the "radical empiricism," as it came to be called, became more coherent and, phenomenologically speaking, more adequate. I will be concerned in this course less with the applications of this construal of experience in epistemology, ethics, and metaphysics than with the manner of construal itself--its proposals, the methods of its approach, and the difficulties it faces.
Texts:
Requirements:
(1) Contribution to class discussion.
(2) Class presentation and paper. Each student will be assigned a class report on specified reading material. For each of these you will prepare and read a paper, a copy of which will be provided to me and to each student in the course on or before the class in which it is to be read. Each such presentation is to be typed, double-spaced, and no more than six pages in length. Each report must contain a significant amount of critical analysis which is focused on some claim or argument made by the author in the material assigned. Mere paraphrase is to be held to a minimum (each of us will have already read the assigned material), though a paper which offers a clarification of a particularly dense or puzzling passage will be acceptable. If the student wishes, this paper may be rewritten and handed in at the next class meeting.
(3) Term paper. Typed, double-spaced, 10-15 pages. A critical discussion of some issue relevant to the material assigned or discussed in the course. (Lateness may result in some slight lowering of the grade.) This paper will be due on Friday, May 8, by 4:00 p. m.
Grading: Items (1) and (2) will together provide the basis for approximately 40 percent of the course grade. Item (3) will therefore count for about 60 percent.
Incompletes are strongly discouraged and will, in any case, require permission.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE TRADITIONAL NOTION OF EXPERIENCE
By and large, the Greeks assumed a notion of experience (empeiria) which was very much like the one we assume in everyday, practical affairs. Something like this:
The everyday, practical notion of "experience:" that by means of which one comes to gain "knowledge" of everyday and practical affairs without reliance on developed theory or reasoning from principles of theoretical knowledge. Involves memory, the development of habits, immersion in an activity, trial and error, and "hands on" guidance or apprenticeship. E.g., an experienced physician, wine-maker, warrior, teacher, etc. The question, "How much experience has he had?" is relevant.
But since one may go wrong in this process of gaining experience (mislearn, get into bad habits, etc.) and since such "knowledge" is not fixed by being determined by theoretically authorized principles, it became a philosophical concern (beginning perhaps with Democritus) to separate out the possible sources of such error from an "original material" which can be diversely misconstrued or properly construed (as, perhaps, due to the nature of "things" or as merely conventional). The notion of such an "original material" guides the development of a philosophical notion of experience. This development is rather halting and often deflected by different concerns, but the notion under development might be put, minimally, something like this:
What is peremptorily present to one is not, however, taken by every philosopher to exclude its having been shaped by the influence of one's upbringing, beliefs, and needs. We must be careful to distinguish between the notion of experience as phainomena and whatever explanation may be given for its being such, i.e., between (i) the phenomenal notion of experience and (ii) the theoretical explanation of experience in that phenomenal sense of the term.
What Aristotle has to say about "experience" is enlightening. The following remark from the Posterior Analytics captures his attitude.
So from perception [aisthêsis] there comes memory, as we call it, and from memory (when it occurs often in connection with the same thing), experience [empeiria]; for memories that are many in number form a single experience. And from experience, or from the whole universal that has come to rest in the mind (the one apart from the many, whatever is one and the same in all those things), <there comes> a principle of skill and of understanding--of skill if it deals with how things come about, of understanding if it deals with what is the case. (100a3-10, translation by Jonathan Barnes from Aristotle's Posterior Analytics, Oxford University Press 1975)
Here, it is clear, experience as empeiria is very close indeed to the everyday, practical notion, though coupled with a distinctive Aristotelian theory of how it comes about and what it results in (skill or understanding). But the important point is that there is no reference to anything like the distinctively phenomenal notion at issue. Rather, it is aisthêsis which is closer to that notion in this context. In other contexts, however, it seems that either phainomena or phantasia is the better fit.
But this is not quite all that was involved in the classical Greek notion, for almost immediately the notion tilted towards the acceptance of certain other constraints.
Subsequent tilts. I use the term 'tilt' to cover without disambiguation the three possibilities of whether what is proposed is taken to be (a) a theory about experience, (b) a characterization of experience, or (c) a clarification or alteration of the concept of "experience." It is impossible to determine clearly from the literature which of these is intended in any particular case.
1. The tilt towards identification of experience with that which is provided by (or to) the senses (aisthêsis, sense perception, sense-presentations).
2. The tilt towards the contrast of experience with reason.
The latter is important on the assumption of a general principle of understanding: one term of a contrasting opposition can be understood fully only by consideration of how it is in opposition to the other term.
Among the Greeks emphasis falls as often (if not more frequently) on the faculties of aisthêsis, phantasia, nous, orexis, etc., as upon the character of that which such faculties allow to appear or be present. This raises significant problems of interpretation in any attempt, such as this, to extricate a characterization of that which appears as such from any such theoretical intrusion.
3. The tilt towards cognitive status (experiencing is a way of knowing).
Tilts (2) and (3) underlie the Modern empiricism/rationalism controversy, as though there are two and only two possible sources of knowledge, but both are clearly present among the ancients.
4. The tilt towards passivity of reception.
- present to
This provides the basis for the introduction of the notion of the given. It is especially significant in regard to aisthêsis. The assumption is that sense-presentations are the "gifts" of things which, as the "givers," are non-phenomenal realities in the world. This represents another theoretical intrusion (as in the case of faculty-theorizing) into any concern to consider what is peremptorily present as such. Nonetheless, the term 'the given' is typically used in post-Cartesian philosophy merely to mark out the peremptorily present without any assumption of a "giver." I will, perforce, pick up this usage in what follows.
The passivity drift: Sometimes, it appears, the notion of passivity drifts to the side of the experiences themselves, so that, given the "givenness" of experience and the passivity of reception, sense-presentations are sometimes themselves said to be passive. The sceptics sometimes talk this way and the notion flowers much later in Berkeley, but it is not clear that this constitutes a generally accepted tilt.
There is another set of assumptions, seldom expressed clearly, which may be stated like this: there is a plurality of distinguishable items in one's total experience at any specific time such that each item is (i) itself an experience and (ii) a particular instance of a sort. Thus, other cases of items of that sort are possible in experience, either at that or other times, though each such case of that sort is itself irrepeatable and particular. For example, a specific shade of green may recur in other circumstances, but each experienced instance of that shade of green is a one-time-only occurrence. I will sum these tilts up as follows:
5. The tilt towards a plurality of distinguishable items in experience.
6. The tilt towards the characteral repeatability of each distinguishable item.
7. The tilt towards the particularal irrepeatability of each distinguishable item.
It can be argued that Aristotle was constrained to hold all three of these in respect to sense-presentations since he accepted, in respect to predicables, both particular accidents and their exemplification of universals. In any case, such a consideration led to the doctrine of the abstraction of repeatables among his followers, particularly Aquinas. On an entirely different basis, all three became principles clearly embraced by Hume and, somewhat less clearly, Descartes as well.
In his Outlines of Scepticism, Sextus Empiricus makes the following observation:
Those who say that the Sceptics reject what is apparent have not, I think, listened to what we say. As we said before, we do not overturn anything which leads us, without our willing it, to assent in accordance with a passive appearance--and these things are precisely what is apparent. When we investigate whether existing things are such as they appear, we grant that they appear, and what we investigate is not what is apparent but what is said about what is apparent--and this is different from investigating what is apparent itself. For example, it appears to us that honey sweetens . . . ; but whether . . . it is actually sweet is something we investigate--and this is not what is apparent but something said about what is apparent. (Book I, x, translation by Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes from Sextus Empiricus: Outlines of Scepticism, Cambridge University Press 1994)
The following remarks by Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes are helpful:
When the Pyrrhonists talk of appearances or of how things appear they are not indulging in technical philosophical jargon. The word phainesthai, which we translate as 'appear', is a common Greek term. ('Appearance' translates phantasia, the cognate noun. The terms to phainomenon and ta phainomena, which other translators sometimes transliterate or else render as 'impressions' or 'appearances', are literally 'what appears' or 'what is apparent'.) There is no suggestion that 'appearances' are somehow entities distinct from the objects which purportedly produce them. The Pyrrhonists are not assuming that when we attend to 'the appearances' we are attending to a peculiar sort of entity, a mental image or a sense-datum, say. On the contrary, to attend to the appearances is simply to attend to the way things appear--it is to notice that honey appears sweet, oil viscous, butter rancid.
Appearing is not something which only perceptible objects can do: music may sound, and hence appear, loud; sandpaper may feel, and hence appear, rough; but equally an argument may appear valid, a statement may appear true, an action may appear unwarranted . . . (p. 23, The Modes of Scepticism, by Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes, Cambridge University Press 1985)
Aristotle and the Stoics distinguished aisthêsis and phantasia as different sorts of "presentations," though perhaps of a single faculty. Even if sense-presentations were of sort (ii), presentations of phantasia are of sort (iii). They seem to agree on that. And since phantasia is what appears as such, it is closer to the notion of "experience" as it emerges in the post-1870 period than that of sense perception. But consider the following remarks by Martha Nussbaum in her Aristotle's De Motu Animalium (Princeton University Press, 1978):
The theory of phantasia, then, helps Aristotle to account for the interpretive side of perception; and it does more. The claim that aisthêsis and phantasia are "the same faculty" now amounts to the contention that reception and interpretation are not separable, but thoroughly interdependent. There is no receptive "innocent eye" in perception. How something phainetai to me is obviously bound up with my past, my prejudices, and my needs. But if it is only in virtue of phantasia, and not aisthêsis alone, that I apprehend the object as an object, then it follows that there is no uninterpreted or "innocent" view of it, no distinction--at least on the level of form or object-perception--between the given, or received, and the interpreted. Aisthêsis still seems to present uninterpreted colors, sounds, etc.; to this extent Aristotle is still a believer in the given. But this theory of phantasia (like his theory of the phainomena in his philosophy of science) has taken him a long way in a more promising direction. (260-61)
Of course, if one is only interested in eliciting the phenomenal notion of experience, as we are, then the theoretical explanation of such experience as preshaped by interpretive factors is completely irrelevant. If what appears is always an appears-as, then that is precisely what the present, had, and peremptory is. To maintain that, nonetheless, what so appears is already laced with interpretation is a theoretical intrusion into the issue. Moreover, the theory lets in what it purportedly rules out, namely, a pure given. For if what we have in experience is always an interpreted something, then something is interpreted, even though it may never be "phenomenally" available. Kant's sensory manifold is like that.
Sextus's Outlines of Pyrrhonism (rendered as Outlines of Scepticism by some) seems to have been unavailable and almost entirely unknown throughout the Medieval period. Greek manuscripts began to appear in the 15th century, however, and in 1562 the work was translated into Latin. In short order it became very widely read and devastatingly influential. The so-called "pyrrhonistic crisis" took place in the early 17th century and was not put to rest until Descartes seemed to offer a refutation. The point to bringing this up is that, in spite of the popularity of Sextus Empiricus the resulting appeals to "appearances" and "experience" during that period were significantly less sophisticated than those of the sceptics or, indeed, of any of the Hellenistic philosophers. It is difficult, for example, to find anything beyond a somewhat casual and certainly unexamined use of such terms in the writings of Marin Mersene (1588-1648) and Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655), the two guiding lights of the so-called "mitigated scepticism" which, in order to provide a firm basis for the new science, appealed to the sort of "knowledge" gained from experience and appearances alone. Still, because of the concern for sensory observation in connection with the rapid rise of the new scientific method, something new and authoritative about "experience" was beginning to be demanded.
In regard to the problem of specifying the nature of a sense-presentation, the philosophers in the centuries following the ancient sceptics and even into the seventeenth century offer very little help, if they saw the problem at all. But as the concern in the early seventeenth century began to develop towards finding an empirical basis for scientific knowledge, the emphasis began to shift towards abstraction of an incorrigible content from any reference to "external" objects in gross, everyday perception (which latter might be thought to introduce a "judgmental" factor which might be mistaken) and thus towards something like a "qualia" view. It is difficult to put one's finger on the point of shift, since even in Descartes the discussion of the senses is ambiguous on the point. Nonetheless, somewhere along the way the view began to develop that, by appeal to an appropriate method of considering sense-presentations, an incorrigible content may be laid bare. This involves three tilts.
Ironically, it was by virtue of Descartes' attack on the empiricism of the senses that an "appropriate" method of disclosure became available to the empiricists.
The problem of reflective givenness: Though some of the contents of consciousness are subject to my will in regard to whether they will appear or take place in my consciousness, from the reflective point of view of the subject all of these contents appear as being there, as "given" and "present" contents of consciousness. Since, however, only some of these contents are taken to be experiences (= sense-contents), we must assume that that reflective manner of the disclosure of experiences which ensures their cognitive status and, indeed, incorrigibility is distinct from the (prereflective) manner in which their presence and givenness determines them to be experiences. But then the problems arise: does it make sense to say that experiences in their first (prereflective) appearance are such as to be cognitive and incorrigible? do such experiences remain the same in character by being subjected to reflective survey? The assumption seems to have been that the answer to both of these questions is "yes." But it is hardly clear why.
The problem of consciousness: At this juncture the appeal to a certain distinctive field or receptacle of contents becomes such common coin as to be unquestioned. It is not at all clear that such an appeal would have made much sense to the Greeks, though it is common today to read such a concern back into their views. In any event, there is now a problem of determining what the nature of this entity (field, receptacle) could possibly be. And following on this are all of the problems of mind-body dualism.
The problem of privacy: Since these contents are of my own consciousness and disclosed only to me, they seem to be private to me. If experience as sensory-content is incorrigible only as such a private disclosure, how could an empirical basis for a shared knowledge of the world be possible
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Descartes' classification of thoughts (his term for contents of consciousness) in the Meditations
- Thoughts
A. Ideas (simple and complex)
i. sensory experiences
ii. intellections
a. imaginative
b. pure (concepts)
B. Acts
i. volitions (emotions)
ii. judgments
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adopt the reflective, incorrigibility, and cognitive tilts and attempt to separate out among the contents of consciousness the "experiential" sorts.
12. The tilt towards expansion of experience to emotions, feelings, etc.
It is consequent upon this that the tilt towards sense-contents (8 above) becomes a tilt towards experiential contents in general or, as Hume has it, contents of impressions.
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Note: This last tilt is not to be confused with tilt (5) towards
a plurality of distinguishable items, though it presupposes it.
The point here is that experience is analyzable into "least"
units because experience in fact consists of such least units.
Nor is it to be confused with (16), i.e., the view that it is
possible for any simple to appear in any context.
Berkeley certainly denies the separability of simples. In regard
to the purported primary/secondary quality distinction, he makes
these remarks:
For my own part, I see evidently that it is not in my power to frame an idea of a body extended and moved, but I must withal give it some color or other sensible quality which is acknowledged to exist only in the mind. In short, extension, figure, and motion, abstracted from all other qualities, are inconceivable. Where therefore the other sensible qualities are, there must these be also, to wit, in the mind and nowhere else. (section 10 of George Berkeley's A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge)
The denial of separability does not, of course, suffice to establish that such qualities exist only in the mind.
15. The tilt towards passivity of content.
In Berkeley we have the full-fledged move to the consideration of sense and other experiential contents as merely passive and inert as such. In his A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, he remarks:
All our ideas, sensations, or the things which we perceive, by whatsoever names they may be distinguished, are visibly inactive--there is nothing of power or agency included in them. So that one idea or object of thought cannot produce or make any alteration in another. To be satisfied of the truth of this, there is nothing else requisite but a bare observation of our ideas. For since they and every part of them exist only in the mind, it follows that there is nothing in them but what is perceived; but whoever shall attend to his ideas, whether of sense or reflection, will not perceive in them any power or activity; there is, therefore, no such thing contained in them. A little attention will discover to us that the very being of an idea implies passiveness and inertness in it . . . (section 25)
It is to be noted, of course, that the test employed for this claim of passivity is that of reflective availability. This confronts the aforementioned problem of reflective givenness and the apparent supposition that whatever is pre-reflective can be made available, completely and without distortion or alteration, by reflection.
Hume's classification of perceptions (his term for contents of consciousness):
Perceptions
A. Impressions
i. Sensations
ii. Reflexions
B. Ideas
16. The tilt towards quantitative and qualitative degree of difference.
The puzzle of the vertical continuum. Degree of vivacity, more or less faint or weak, etc. cannot serve to distinguish impressions along the vertical continuum, since that device is used by Hume to distinguish along the horizontal continuum.
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Consider. Hume attempts to establish the copy-claim regarding ideas by appeal to "experience." That's (b). In morality he bases his claims on "experience" of what men do in daily life. That's (c).
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17. The tilt towards externality of simples (there is no experience of relations or ties among simples which determines their nature; each simple is exactly the same in every context).
The doctrine in Hume is an amalgam of two distinct principles which, as he claims, he has trouble in reconciling with each other. His famous remarks on this are found in a discussion of personal identity in the Appendix to his A Treatise of Human Nature.
Whatever is distinct, is distinguishable; and whatever is distinguishable, is separable by the thought or imagination. All perceptions are distinct. They are, therefore, distinguishable, and separable, and may be conceiv'd as separately existent, and may exist separately, without any contradiction or absurdity.
. . . If perceptions are distinct existences, they form a whole only by being connected together. But no connexions among distinct existences are ever discoverable by human understanding. . . .The present philosophy, therefore, has so far a promising aspect. But all of my hopes vanish, when I come to explain the principles, that unite our successive perceptions in our thought or consciousness. I cannot discover any theory, which gives me satisfaction on this head.
In short, there are two principles, which I cannot render consistent; nor is it in my power to renounce either of them, viz. that all our distinct perceptions are distinct existences, and that the mind never perceives any real connexion among distinct existences. (pp. 634-36, edition edited by L. A. Selby-Bigge, Oxford University Press 1888)
The purported inconsistency indicated here presupposes, of course, a certain answer to the problem of the identification of simples: what is to count as a perception (and hence an impression or idea) of the simplest or indivisible sort? The "inconsistency" arises from the answer he gives to this question.
Simple perceptions or impressions and ideas are such as admit of no distinction nor separation. The complex are the contrary to these, and may be distinguished into parts. Tho' a particular colour, taste, and smell are qualities all united together in this apple, 'tis easy to perceive they are not the same, but are at least distinguishable from each other. (p. 2)
But, then, if a color, white, say, represents a simple perception, it should (contra Berkeley) be separable from any other, a spherical area say. There are, however, problems with this, as indicated in Hume's labored discussion of a white globe. See below.
Douglas Browning
The University of Texas at Austin
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A. It divides into personal domains.
E. Within each personal domain prereflective consciousness is primitive.
F. The thought of an object is, however complex the object, always undivided.
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James' error.
The general error: not taking experience as it is, but interpreting it under a theory (which indicates what it should be).
The error of desubjectifying: to take experience to be as structured as its objects.
James usually guards against this, but he slips up now and then, e.g., he allows into experience a view of selection and choice which he thinks must be present in order to understand the character of accentuation and emphasis of certain objects.
The error of deobjectifying: to take experience to be as unstructured as it would be were the autonomy of certain objects (= things) abstracted from it.
James falls right into this, often. The most glaring example is that of invoking a theory of a "primordial chaos of sensation" as though it were experientially (introspectively) grounded. But in fact he never gives the experience of everyday, concrete things (people, rocks, shoes, wine) its due.
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Douglas Browning
- The University of Texas at Austin
James' claim:
"Our passional nature not only lawfully may, but must, decide an option
between propositions, whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its
nature be decided on intellectual grounds. . ."
The boldfaced terms need to be carefully considered
and understood in order
to see what James is claiming.
1. passional nature. What constitutes our passional
nature are all of those
tendencies, predilections, desires, hopes, fears, etc., which
we bring to
the option which we confront. As such, this side of our nature
is
(a) non-intellectual, i.e., not a part of our "objective" consideration of
evidence and "scientific" or logical arguments,(b) weighted, i.e., present on a continuum of our commitment from
superficial to deep. (What is superficial is passing, temporary, or trivial
to us; what is deep is closer to our "hearts."),and(c) individual and unique with each one of us. (Though we may indeed share
certain of our passionately held beliefs, desire, hopes, etc., we do not by
any means share them all.)
2. genuine option. A genuine option for someone X is
a choice between two
alternatives A and not-A, such that the option is
(a) living, i.e., such that it is an option between alternatives each of
which it is really possible that X could take. (Thus, X already has some
predilection to take both A and not-A and thus to consider both alternatives
seriously. It is therefore only living relative to X, for to another person
Y either A or not-A may not be a live possibility, but simply dead.)(b) forced, i.e., such that there are only two alternatives to take and one
must, by the nature of the case, take one and not the other. (To choose not
to take A is to choose to take not-A.)(c) momentous, i. e., not trivial, but important for the direction and
develop- ment of our lives. An option is trivial if both alternatives are
such that either (i) the opportunity is not unique, (ii) the stake is
insignificant, or (iii) the decision to take one alternative or the other is
reversible if it later prove unwise.
3. cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds,
i.e., the
question "Which is the alternative which I ought to take?"
or "Which
alternative is the true or better one?" is intellectually
undecidable. This
can be the case because either
(a) there cannot be, by the nature of the case, any factual evidence or a
priori arguments to confirm or disconfirm either alternative (as, for
example, in "The Dilemma of Determinism" evidence can only be given for what
does happen, but not for what might have happened and in "The Will to
Believe" evidence cannot be made available for what ought to be rather than
for what is) or(b) though there might in principle be such evidence in the future, X cannot
in his or her situation of a forced option right now wait for it (as, for
example, when pursued by killers on a mountain path and suddenly faced with
a chasm I ask "Can I jump this chasm or not?" and therefore confront the
option of accepting that I can and make the leap or failing to accept that I
can, or as in "The Will to Believe" I ask myself whether you like me or
not).
4. whenever. This has the logical force of 'if', so
that the claim by James
may be rephrased like this:
If someone X is
(i) in a situation S in which he or she is faced with an option O of
choosing between two alternatives A and not-A,(ii) O is genuine, i.e., living, forced, and momentous for X in S and
(iii) the choice between A and not-A is intellectually undecidable,
then it is the case that both
(a) X will (because X must) choose that alternative which X believes to
conform best with his or her passional nature and(b) X is rationally justified in choosing that alternative which in fact
conforms best with X's passional nature as X believes it to be upon whatever
careful consideration is possible under the circumstances.
5. must be decided by one's passional nature, i.e.,
as indicated under 4
above, when X is faced with the option between A and not-A and
conditions
(ii) and (iii) under the 'if' in 4 above hold, X's passional nature
becomes
motivationally compelling. Thus, X will be determined to choose
that
alternative which X believes to best conform to X's passional
nature.
6. lawfully may, i.e., as indicated under 4 above, when
conditions (i),
(ii), and (iii) hold, one is rationally justified in choosing
that
alternative which X believes upon careful consideration to be
in best
conformity with X's passional nature (thus attempting to find
conformity
with the deeper stratum of passional nature in preference to the
superficial). Thus, it would be irrational not to take account
of one's
passional nature in such a case. To put it another way, X ought
(rationally
speaking) to choose that alternative which is thought to so conform.
COMMENT: I am not convinced by item 5 above and, therefore,
not by
consequent (a) under item 4. What James probably believes is that
our
passional nature (as we read it) is determining between A and
not-A only
because the option is forced. But I'm not sure that we cannot
choose to
decide the issue by chance, by flipping a coin.
Now let us assume that James' claim is correct. An important
issue remains.
Are we (you and I) ever confronted with such a genuine and intellectually
undecidable option? Remember, all three of the conditions in 4
above must be
satisfied in order for the consequent to follow. Are there such
situations?
James ends his discussion in "The Will to Believe" by
providing us with
three such situations or sorts of cases,
(a) moral questions,
(b) questions concerning personal relations, and
(c) the question of religious faith.
He might, it seems to me, have added a fourth:
(d) the question of determinism or indeterminism.
And even a fifth:
(e) the question "How am I to live in order that my life have meaning?"
But, of course, all of these questions are inextricable from
each other and
perhaps are best gathered together under (e), which then may be
considered,
not a single genuine option, but several.
COMMENT: In any case, it is quite clear that James did not
think that his
personal choice of the religious alternative (as I assume it was
for him)
provides of itself an answer to the question of whether his life
has meaning
or to the more general question "Can life be meaningful and,
if so, how?"
This is quite clear from the fact that in his article "What
Makes a Life
Significant" the religious/non-religious option, however
genuine it may be
for you or me, does not play a significant role.
William James. "The Dilemma of Determinism"
(1) Either D (determinism) or not-D (indeterminism).
(2) There is no theoretical proof of either D or not-D.
[Whether D or not-D is intellectually undecidable.]
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Given the above, James finds that he (personally) confronts
a dilemma
regarding the acceptance of determinism and that he therefore
can only
accept indeterminism. His argument goes as follows:
(3) I must accept either D or not-D.
(4) If I accept D, then I must accept P (pessimism) or S (subjectivism)
(5) I cannot accept P.
(6) I cannot accept S.
Therefore:
(7) I must accept not-D.
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(8) All of us at one time or another make judgments of regret.
To regret that x is to judge that it would have been
better had x not
occurred.
(9) Either at least some of these judgments are correct or
all of them are
mistaken.
(10) If I accept that some judgments of regret are correct
and I also accept
determinism, then I must assume that it would have been better
had there
been another universe than the one we have. [Since there is no
way out of
the universe we have, accepting this is to accept P (pessimism.)]
(11) If I deny that any judgments of regret are true, then,
if I also accept
determinism, I must assume that our universe contains mistakes.
[Though this
may look, at first, as though it would allow us to hold an an
optimistic
view, since nothing in the universe which we regret could really
be better
than it is, the fact remains that the universe contains errors
and therefore
is not as good as a universe which contained no errors. This leads
us back
to P.]
(12) But I may deny that any judgments of regret are true and
yet maintain
that such judgments are themselves good for us to have if I accept
S
(subjectivism), i. e., believe that both what I regret and my
having the
regrets which I do serve the purpose of bringing about the only
real good
which there is, namely, the raising of my consciousness to a higher
level of
experience or knowledge.
(13) If I am a determinist and don't accept P, then I must accept S.
(14) If I accept S, then, since I believe that all that really
counts is my
experience or my knowledge, I must believe that my actions are
neither
morally right nor wrong and that what occurs in the world in neither
good
nor bad.
(15) But I cannot accept this consequence of S, for I will
not give up all
of my regrets nor my acceptance of the moral significance of what
I do.
["There are some instinctive reactions which I, for one,
will not tamper
with."]
(16) Therefore, I must accept indeterminism and the pluralism
which goes
with it. [There is good and bad in the universe, but it is possible
that
through our action we may better it. This is meliorism.]
My central text is this:
Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of philosophers and becomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of men. ("The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy," 1917)
Points for elaboration
1. "the problems of philosophers:" the failures of
dualisms, abstractionisms
2. "the problems of men:" a return to the concrete
It is difficult not to notice a curious unrest in the philosophic atmosphere of the time, a loosening of old landmarks, a softening of oppositions, a mutual borrowing from one another on the part of systems anciently closed, and an interesst in new suggestions, however vague, as if the one thing sure were the inadequacy of the extant school-solutions. The dissatisfaction with these seems due for the most part to a feeling that they are too abstract and academic. Life is confused and superabundant, and what the younger generation appears to crave is more of the temperament of life in its philosophy . . . (William James, "A World of Pure Experience," 1904.)
3. "the problems of men:" one's life consists of
a stream of everchanging experience
4. "a method:" starting with everyday experience
Philosophers of very diverse stripes propose that philosophy shall take its start from one or another state of mind in which no man, least of all the beginner in philosophy, actually is ... But in truth, there is but one state of mind from which you can "set out," namely, the very state of mind in which you actually find yourself at the time you do "set out" . . . (Charles Sanders Peirce, "What Pragmatism Is," 1905)
5. "a method:" genuine inquiry begins with
finding oneself in an indeterminate situation
6. "a method:" inquiry involves (among other things)
taking account of context
7. "a method:" the process of inquiry, as well as
its product, is reconstructive, transformative
8. "dealing with the problems of men": achievements
in concrete, everyday lives
a. solving a particular problem in a
particular situation
b. growing in intelligence: provision
of tools and habits for future inquiries
c. realizing intraexperiential
values
i. enhancing
themeaningfulness of experience in our lives
ii. developing creative,
open, and intelligent selves
iii. developing communities
(social, economic, political, educational) which favor and encourage
the
achievement of such values and selves
iv. living a life in conformity
with the idea of democracy