Kind Of Philosophy Research Articles

XLII.—The Nature of Scientific Philosophy

The title I have chosen for this lecture contains an implication which perhaps will not be generally accepted; there was a time when I would not have accepted it myself. The implication is that a particular kind of philosophy is possible which may be called scientific in contrast with other kinds which cannot be so called. I would go further and identify this scientific philosophy with what is generally called science, and this implies that the distinction that is often assumed to exist between science and philosophy is a false one. For this view I believe there is historical evidence. Science, as a separate, self-contained study, dates from the seventeenth century. Before that time, such consideration as was given to the subject-matter of present-day science was given it by philosophers and regarded as a part of their philosophising, and when in the seventeenth century a new kind of procedure was introduced, it was looked upon by its pioneers not as an attack on a new problem but as a new attack on an old problem. The science of that time was the “new philosophy”, faintly adumbrated by some mediæval philosophers, struggling for expression in Francis Bacon, and coming to full recognition in Galileo. Only later, when it had made such progress in certain limited fields of study that a new body of investigators was called into being who confined themselves to those fields, was the new philosophy transformed into a non-philosophy and called generally by the name “science”.

N. P. Willis and the American Language

\ATHANIEL PAER WILLIS was one of the most popular writers of thc i)1 period from 1828 to 1860, but from the Civil War until the present d;ay his reputation appears to have declined so that it is not surprising to find that scant attention has been paid to him in our linguistic researches. He was praised and condemned by the critics for his pretentiousness, his mutilation of the English language, and lais kind of philosophy which completely disdained the future for the contemporary life. rhe Cambridge History of American Liternture has this to say about Willis: 'Striving to be original at all costs, he first embellished, then later mutilated the English language, sticking it full of foreign phrases, coined words, and oddities of diction culled from all times and localities. If these things seem intolerable when compared to the sure classic perfection of Irving's style, we must remember that fluidity is essential to the innovator. Willis followed no tradition, good or bad.'1 I wish to make it possible for the reader to understand this mutilation of language with whicll Willis has been charged, by presenting whatever remarks of importance that he has made relative to the subject of language. I shall try to do so impartially; it is no concern of 1nine whether he was the great writer some claimed him to be or just a grand failure, as that can have no bearing on his contributions to the American language, the immediate object of my research. Before I quote from the writings of \Alillis, however, I wish to point out that H. L. Mencken has seen fit to write about him in his first supplement to The AmJerifan Language.2 Mr. Mencken combines praise with criticism, but I believe that after this article his estimation of \\lillis will be higher. I have selected from his Complete Works a passage in which Willis defends himself against the criticism of his use of words:

The Comparable Interests of the Old Moral Philosophy and the Modern Social Sciences

I W HEN it is said so often that the social sciences had their origin in philosophy it is surprising to find that no historian of any one of them has yet analyzed the particular kind of philosophy from which they came, namely, moral philosophy. Whatever the reasons for the neglect, these questions are fair: How can a political scientist interpret Grotius correctly if he extracts from Grotius' work only those chapters which deal with government and international law specifically? How much of Adam Smith's economics do we know if we neglect the background of The Wealth of Nations? Why in a definitive way should Adam Ferguson be called a sociologist when he can with equal right be called psychologist, political scientist, economist, jurist, anthropologist, and teacher of ethics and aesthetics as well? These men were moral philosophers, with interests as wide as the customs and institutions of man. To be a moral philosopher was to be an analyst and interpreter of the current mores, and at the same time a protagonist of new relationships thought by the philosopher to be more highly ethical and advantageous. Not only do we put a false light on the moral philosopher when we claim him in one of the social sciences as if he had no other affiliations, but we also fail to see the separate social sciences themselves in true historical perspective when we forget that they once had a very definite pattern of belonging together and of inhering as one mass in a common set of presuppositions. Twentieth century social scientists, and even twentieth century philosophers it is suspected, are in the habit of too completely equating moral philosophy with ethics. It is true that the ultimate aim of that discipline was to bring about human relationships which would be in advance, ethically, of current practice. In the course of argument, however, the moralists' material included discussions of human nature, social forces, progress, marriage and family relationships, economic processes, maintenance of government, international relations, elementary jurisprudence, primitive customs, history of institutions, religion, ethics, aesthetics -all topics of import in the social sciences of our day. This comprehensive table of contents has been consistently characteristic of moral philosophy since the days when the discussions of Socrates were transcribed. Within such a mass of material there was a definite pattern of arrangement of the different sections. Usually in the beginning the moralist would take the reader into his confidence somewhat by setting forth his aims, his starting points and his methods. Here occur those definitions of science and scientific procedure which still rise up to confront an investigator and which should be intensely interesting to students of methodology and to historians of ideas. After setting out in view his working tools the writer would next lay what he considered his foundation stone, his discussion of the facts of human nature. This discussion was the requirement of most importance, to his

The Pragmatic Approach to Politics

I have been asked to present for your discussion the pragmatic approach to political science, the reason being, as I suppose, that my business is the study of philosophy and pragmatism is a kind of philosophy. Now philosophy has special interests of its own and hardly ever offers anything that can be taken over ready-made into scientific work with any useful results; moreover, the discussion of methods at large hardly ever leads to much. A method is good for just what it does, and its uses must be apparent just in the science where it is used. I greatly doubt, therefore, whether any good would come of my talking to you about philosophic pragmatism, which is a name of rather indefinite meaning, signifying a group of scientific and philosophic tendencies rather than a systematic doctrine. It does stand roughly for a point of view, which has perhaps been stated most clearly by Professor John Dewey, and it is a fact that this point of view has acted as a sort of ferment outside philosophy, especially in economics and law, and seems likely to have a significant influence on these subjects, at least in America and during the next few years. What I mean to do, therefore, is to try to picture pragmatism in action, compressing into a single paragraph the description of pragmatism as a point of view. To illustrate pragmatism in action, I have chosen some attempts to adopt this point of view in economics, particularly the work of Thorstein Veblen and Professor Wesley C. Mitchell, and also in the study of law, particularly the program put forward by Professors Walter Wheeler Cook and Herman Oliphant.