Inquiry and the Good Society: The Experimentalism of E. A. Singer

Abstract

Inquiry and the Good Society: The Experimentalism of E. A. Singer, Jr. EDWARD W. STEVENS, JR. THE WORK OF EDGAR ARTHUR SINGER, JR.--professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, student of William James, contributor to numerous scholarly journals, popular speaker before the literary and philosophic clubs of his day, and a recognized scholar on the philosophy of science--has, in recent years, attracted the attention of scholars in such diverse areas as experimental psychology, criminology, biology, aesthetics, and systems analysis. LDespite this diverse application of Singerian theory, however, references to his work are few and general histories of American philosophy and ideas do not treat of him. In short, Singer's place in the history of American pragmatism has been largely ignored in favor of the contributions of Pierce, James, and Dewey--an oversight that has generally led historians, philosophers, and educators alike to assume that in the instrumentalism of John Dewey the pragmatic way of thought achieved its highest development, z This author wishes to avoid that assumption and examine the contributions of E. A. Singer on their own merits. It is well known, and was acknowledged by both Singer and Dewey, that American pragmatism had its first inspirations in Kant's critical philosophy of science. More specifically, the inspiration was neo-Kantian insofar as it "maintained a persistent interest in both the logical foundations of knowledge and the principles and value presuppositions of judgments. ''3 As Dewey noted in his review of American pragmatism in Philosophy and Civilization, "I myself, and those who have collaborated with me in the exposition of instrumentalism, began by being neo-Kantians, in the same way that Peirce's point of departure was Kantianism and that of James was the empiricism of the British school. ''4 Indebtedness, however, should not be confused with approval. As Dewey notes sardonically in his "Empirical Survey of Empiricism," ' See Francis W. Irwin, "The Concept of Volition in Experimental Psychology," Thomas A. Cowan, "Toward An Experimental Definition of Criminal Mind," Elizabeth F. Flower, "Two Applications of Logic to Biology," John K. Shryock, "The Cultural Function in Religion," in Philosophical Essays in Honor of Edgar Arthur Singer Jr., ed. F. P. Clarke and M. C. Nahm (Freeport, New York: Books for LibrariesPress, 1969). 2An exception here isC. West Churchman and RussellL Ackoff,Methods oflnquiry: An Introduction to Philosophy and Scientific Method (St. Louis: Educational Publishers, 1950).The organization of their work is historical, although the treatment of issues is primarily philosophic. 3Frederick Copleston, "The Neo-KantianMovement," inA History of Philosophy (London: Burns and Oates, 1965),7, 361-365. 4(NewYork: Capricorn Books, 1963),p. 27. [711 72 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY the separation of the cognitive from the active "has become current in modern thought largely through the influence of Immanuel Kant, who was not satisfied until he had separated, if he possibly could, everything that belonged together. "5 Singer's debt to Kant was equally as great, but unlike Dewey, his Kantianism remained an active ingredient of his pragmatic outlook. He was, in fact, rather sharp with Dewey and the instrumentalists for their inclination to withhold credit when credit was due. In a paper given by proxy before the American Philosophical Association in 1912 Singer remarked: For in spite of Mr. Dewey's claim upon the gratitude of posterity for the service rendered by instrumentalism in calling attention to the "social constitution of personal, even of private experience," I cannot think that posterity, supposing it to be duly grateful for the idea itself, will find much to choose between instrumentalist and absolutist in the matter of calling attention to the idea..... So it has seemed to me that Mr. Dewey's claims for the service rendered by instrumentalism in "calling attention to" a doctrine that was old before we were young were tant soit peu exaggerated. The school that invented the theory has not abandoned it, has not spared emphasis in continuing to call attention to it, has outdone all others in the bold clearness with which it has set forth its meaning.6 There was first, then, a difference in the degree to which the neo-Kantian influence persisted in Singer and Dewey. At the least...