because they are such in experience. The cause in large measure is doubtless because the prerequisite tools of physics, physiology and economics were not at hand. But now when these potential instrumentalities are more adequately prepared they will not be employed until it is recognized that the business of moral theory is not at all with consummations and goods as such, but with discovery of the conditions and consequences of their appearance, a work which is factual and analytic, not dialectic, hortatory, nor prescriptive. The argument does not forget that there have been would-be naturalistic and empirical ethics which have asserted that goods are such prior to moral conduct as well as to moral theory, and that they become moral only when employed in conduct as objects of reflective choice and endeavor. But the apparent exception proves the rule. For these forms of moral theory while releasing morals from the obligation of telling man what goods are, leaving that office to life itself, have failed to note that the office of moral philosophy is criticism; and that the performance of this office by discovery of existential conditions and consequences involves a qualitative transformation, a re-making in subsequent action which experimentally tests the conclusions of theory.
Therefore like the Aristotelian ethics, they have been dialectic, defining and classifying in hierarchical order antecedent goods and terminating in a notion of the good, the summum honum; or, like hedonistic ethics, they have made a dialectic abstraction of a feature of concrete goods, their pleasantness; and instead of pro¬ viding a method of analysis of concrete situations have laid down rules of calculation and prescribed policies to be pursued as fixed, not intellectually experimental, results of prior calculations. When they were, like Jeremy Bentham, persons of human sensitiveness to evils from which men suffer in virtue of institutions which may be altered; or, like John Stuart Mill, of genial insight into the constituents of a liberal and humane happiness, they have stirred their generation to beneficent action. But the connection between their theories and the practical outcome was adventitious; their ideas operated when all is said and done as literary rather than as scientific apparatus, as much so as in the case of reforms to which Charles Dickens not meanly contributed.
The implications of the position which has been taken import a “practical” element into philosophy as effective and verifiable criticism, obnoxious to the traditional view. Yet if man is within nature, not a little god outside, and is within as a mode of energy inseparably connected with other modes, interaction is the one unescapable trait of every human concern; thinking, even philosophic think¬ ing, is not exempt. This interaction is subject to par¬ tiality because the human factor has bent and bias. But partiality is not obnoxious just because it is partial. A world characterized by qualitative histories with their own beginnings, directions and terminations is of neces¬ sity a world in which any interaction is intensive change — a world of partialities, particulars. What is obnoxious in partiality is due to the illusion that there are states and acts which are not also interactions. Immature and undisciplined mind believes in actions which have their seat and source in a particular and separate being, from which they issue. This is the very belief which the ad¬ vance of intelligent criticism destroys. The latter transforms the notion of isolated one-sided acts into acknowl¬ edged interactions. The view which isolates knowledge, contemplation, liking, interest, value, or whatever from action is itself a survival of the notion that there are things which can exist and be known apart from active connection with other things.
When man finds he is not a little god in his active powers and accomplishments, he retains his former conceit by hugging to his bosom the notion that nevertheless in some realm, be it knowledge or esthetic contemplation, he is still outside of and detached from the ongoing sweep of inter-acting and changing events; and being there alone and irresponsible save to himself, is as a god. When he perceives clearly and adequately that he is within nature, a part of its interactions, he sees that the line to be drawn is not between action and thought, or action and apprecia¬ tion, but between blind, slavish, meaningless action and action that is free, significant, directed and responsible. Knowledge, like the growth of a plant and the movement of the earth, is a mode of interaction; but it is a mode which renders other modes luminous, important, valuable, cap¬ able of direction, causes being translated into means and effects into consequences.
All reason which is itself reasoned, is thus method, not substance; operative, not “end in itself.” To imagine it the latter is to transport it outside the natural world, to convert it into a god, whether a big and original one or a little and derived one, outside of the contingencies of existence and untouched by its vicissitudes. This is the meaning of the “reason” which is alleged to envisage reality sub specie eternatatis. It is indeed true that all relations, all universals and laws as such are timeless.
Even an order of time as an order is timeless, for it is rela¬ tional. But to give irrelevancy to time the name of eter¬ nal in an eulogistic sense, is but to proclaim that irrele¬ vancy to any existence forms a higher kind of existence. Orders, relations, universals are significant and invaluable as objects of knowledge. They are so because they apply to intensive and extensive, individualized, existences; to things of spacious and temporal qualities. Applica¬ tion is not for the sake of something extraneous, for the sake of something designated an utility. It is for the sake of the laws, principles, ideals. Had they not been de¬ tached for the purpose of application, they would not have meaning; intent and potentiality of application in the course of events lends them all their significance.
Without actuality of application, without effort to realise their intent, they are meanings, but they possess neither truth nor falsity, since without application they have no bearing and test. Thus they cease to be objects of knowledge, or even reflection; and become detached objects of contemplation. They may then have the es¬ thetic value possessed by the objects of a dream. But after all we have not left temporal experience, human desire, liking, and passion behind or below us. We have merely painted nature with the colors of an all too local and transitory flight from the hardships of life. These eternal objects abstracted from the course of events, although labeled Reality, in opposition to Appearance, are in truth but the idlest and most evanescent of appear¬ ances, born of personal craving and shaped by private fantasy.
Because intelligence is critical method applied to goods of belief, appreciation and conduct, so as to construct, freer and more secure goods, turning assent and assertion into free communication of shareable meanings, turning feeling into ordered and liberal sense, turning reaction into response, it is the reasonable object of our deepest faith and loyalty, the stay and support of all reasonable hopes. To utter such a statement is not to indulge in romantic idealization. It is not to assert that intelligence will ever dominate the course of events; it is not even to imply that it will save from ruin and destruction. The issue is one of choice, and choice is always a question of alternatives. What the method of intelligence, thought¬ ful valuation will accomplish, if once it be tried, is for the result of trial to determine. Since it is relative to the intersection in existence of hazard and rule, of contingency and order, faith in a wholesale and final triumph is fan¬ tastic. But some procedure has to be tried: for life is itself a sequence of trials. Carelessness and routine. Olympian aloofness, secluded contemplation are them¬ selves choices. To claim that intelligence is a better method than its alternatives, authority, imitation, caprice and ignorance, prejudice and passion, is hardly an excessive claim. These procedures have been tried and have worked their will. The result is not such as to make it clear that the method of intelligence, the use of science is criticizing and recreating the casual goods of nature into intentional and conclusive goods of art, the union of knowledge and values in production, is not worth trying.
There may be those to whom it is treason to think of philosophy as the critical method of developing methods of criticism. But this conception of philosophy also waits to be tried, and the trial which shall approve or condemn lies in the eventual issue. The import of such knowledge as we have acquired and such experience as has been quickened by thought is to evoke and justify the trial.
ACQUAINTANCE, 329-330.
Activity, See Labor, Practice, Events, Animism, explained, 180-181, 348.
Anthropology, and philosophy, 40- Antinomianism, 147.
A priori, 188.
Appearance, defined, 137-139, and consciousness, 304, See Phenom¬ enal and Consciousness.
Apprehension, 327-332. See Knowl¬ edge.
IX.
Awareness, as perception of meaning, 299, its nature, 304, focal and remaking of meanings, 306-308.
Bergson, H., 50.
Body and Mind, Ch. VII, 301, 322, Brain and Mind, 291, 295.
Choice, influence upon philosophy, Compact, social, 218.
See Esthetic and Appreciation.
Contingent, Nature as, Ch. II, 45, Cosmology, Greek, 90-94, 123-125.
Criticism, 204, 396, 399-400, and Ch. X passim.
£)ATA, sought and taken, not immediate, 22.
Dialectic.
Definition, 330.
Demonstration, two kinds, 10, ancient, Denotation, 10-12 and passim Ch.
Design, as objective, 92.
Dialectic, is empirical, 11, 36, misuse, Emotion, and art, 390-391.
Experience, as philosophic method, Ch. I, ambiguity, 1, 8, and historic empiricism, 4r-6, and consciousness, 7-8, is method not subject-matter, 11-14, 30, 35, natural classifications, 15, not primarily cognitive, 16-19, nor subjective, 22-26, experienc¬ 40, precarious, Ch. II, “Abso¬ lute,” 59-61, experiment, 70, 135, consummatorv. 78-84, instrumental, 84, Ch. Ill, as p EAR, and the gods, 42.
QESTURE, 175.
Growth, see History.
History and the Historical, 8, 28-29, 207, See Essence.
Ideality, source of, 62-63, 89, 167, Consciousness and Individual.
Induction, 380-381.
Ineffable, 85, See Subject.
Inner Life, 226-230.
Instrumental, 84, 116, Ch. IV, 202- Means, Tool.
Interaction, of events, 271-273 or organism and environment, 282— Interest, and feeling, 256.
Introspection, 339-340.
Jesperson, 83.
Jurisdiction, 197-199.
Knowledge, is not immediate, 18, 340, its problem, 21, and philos¬ ties, 86, its proper object, 103, consummatory, 119, and useful arts, Ch. IV, and sense, 259, as an art, Ch. IX, act of, 381.
Leisure, See Appreciation and Labor, Lippmann, W., 303.
Locus, Concept of, 197-200.
Logos, 169.
Malinowski, 205-207.
Matter, a character of events, 73- Meaning, Ch. IV (connection with tools), 128, Ch. V (connection Ch. VIII (connection with mind and consciousness), wider than truth, 411.
Means and Consequences, Ch. IV, Mechanism and Mechanical, 95, 98, Method, of knowledge, 152-156.
Meyer, Max, 176.
Mind, as character of events, 73-75, Greek idea of, 92, 210, and individual, 218-227, and body, Ch. VII, 301, identified, 261, 272, and organism, 279-282, and consciousness, 303-305.
Morals, and Philosophy, 32-37, 50- 54, and metaphysics, 45, nature, 96, 146, and criticism, Ch. X, ^[ATURE, precarious and stable, Ch. II, historical, Ch. Ill, orderly and instrumental, Ch. IV, achieves communication and meaning, Ch. V, has individualizations, Ch. VI, in¬ cludes the vital and psychical, Ch. VII, attains consciousness of meanings, Ch. VIII, cul¬ minates in arts, Ch. IX, is not above criticism, Ch. X.
Need, is objective, 63-64, 123, 253, Nominalism, 184^185.
Objectivism, 240-242.
Observation, 219.
Opinion, 155.
Participation, the chief distinctively Perception, nature of, 182, 304, 306, Phenomenal, as contrasted with the Philosophy, Method of, Ch. I, arti¬ ficial problems of, 20-21, 104, 135, classic tradition, 27, fallacy in, 35, 68, 261, natural source, nature of as criticism of goods or values, Ch. X.
Practice and Practical, 24, 32, 79, Positive and Natural, 223-224. See Arts and Labor.
Premises, 379.
Privacy, 221, Immediacy.
RATIONALISM, 10.
Reality, a eulogistic predicate, 11, Recognition, not knowledge, 327- Reminiscence, 364.
Russell, B., 57.
Satisfaction, is objective, 63-64, 203, Science, discovered by Greeks, 125, its nature, 136-148, a means of knowledge, 154, 161-165, traits of, 193, 262, 309, as an art, 358, 367, as an incubus, 382, is experi¬ mental, 428. See Causation.
Sense-perception, described and analyzed, 332-339.
Sensitivity, 256-257.
Simplification, 12-13. See Elements.
Society and Social, Ch. V, passim, Soliloquy, social origin, 170, 173.
Species, 209.
Standard, of value, 425.
Static, 100.
Stimulus, in relation to perception, Structure, 72-74.
Subject and Subjective, 4, 22-28, 101, Substitution, in science, 142.
Teleology, see Ends.
Tendency, defined, 373.
Tool, defined, 122-123, and science, tal and Means.
Time, Temporal and Eternal, 28-30, 365, 436. See Change and History.
Utilitarians, 78.
YALUATION, See Criticism.
Value, Ch. X. See Good.
Validity, see Truth.
INDELB AND, WM, 147 n. Wisdom, 71, and philosophy, 409.
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