LECTURE I THE SCOPE OF PHILOSOPHY

Philosophy should have a meaning (1) clear, (2) useful, and (3) as far as possible in conformity with common usage. It is to be distinguished from Science, Psychology, Epistemology, etc.

While the Sciences attend to particular parts of the knowable world, Philosophy aims at putting them together into a systematic whole. It may be said that Science is concerned only with phenomena, while Philosophy seeks to know the Realities underlying them. But Science, too, is concerned with Reality, and Philosophy cannot ignore phenomena.

Mr. Spencer defines Philosophy as completely unified knowledge, but this definition overlooks the fact that essential difference in the nature of the whole is as important as resemblance; and his own doctrine of Evolution illustrates this defect.

LECTURE II THE SCOPE OF PHILOSOPHY

Philosophy must deal with the principles and methods of determining 'what ought to be' as well as with those concerning 'what is': its unifying function thus includes not only the 'positive sciences, 'but also Ethics, Politics, etc.

It is the business of Ethics to treat of details of duty or right conduct, but Ethical Philosophy is primarily concerned with the general principles and methods of moral reasoning. A similar distinction may be applied to Politics. Practical Philosophy is thus a supreme architectonic study aiming at the complete systematisation of Arts and Ends: its position relatively to these is analogous to that of Theoretical Philosophy to Science in general

The final task of Philosophy is to co-ordinate these two divisions of its subject-matter. Here a difficult problem arises---the relation of Philosophy to Religion (see Appendix at the end of the lecture). Regarded as ends having a certain value and relative importance, the several sciences and even Theoretical Philosophy itself seem subordinate to Practical Philosophy; but this, on the other hand, regarded as a system of judgments or beliefs belongs to that cognisable existence with which Theoretical Philosophy, deals. Philosophy, then, in its widest sense aims at comprehending all rational thought as one coherent whole.

Hence, since everything that we know or believe, whether concerning 'what is' or what ought to be,' is necessarily thought about, it becomes a problem to distinguish the matter of Philosophy from the matter of Psychology.

Appendix---Relation of Philosophy to Religion

LECTURE III THE RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY TO PSYCHOLOGY

Adopting provisionally the Common Sense distinction of Mind and Matter, we see that Mind may be considered either (1) in itself, or (2) in relation to Matter. The relation of Philosophy and Psychology to be examined from both these points of view.

With feelings and feeling-prompted volitions Philosophy has no special concern: only in thoughts and reasoned purposes has it common ground with Psychology. But there is a Psychological according to which the former are the elements of which the later are composed: this, like Materialistic Philosophy, is a paradoxical divergence from Common Sense, but in an opposite direction. Philosophy is concerned primarily with truth, Psychology with the false and the true alike. But even in dealing with true beliefs, the methods of Psychology and Philosophy differ---the one seeks, introspectively, to ascertain their actual development; the other, dialectically, their ideal order and connexion.

As to the relation of mind to the material world, the complete disparateness of mental facts and nervous changes forbids their treatment as two 'faces of the same thing.' Their causal nexus is the important problem, but one that belongs to Philosophy: Psycho-physiology may content itself with ascertaining their concomitance. But there is a second and quite different relation of mind to matter---that of the cognition that has matter for its object.

Out of the double relation of mind to matter arise the contrasted systems of Materialism and Mentalism---the one identifying thought or feeling with the concomitant nerve-process, the other analysing matter as an object of perception into mental elements. Materialism may be dismissed as loose and confused, but Mentalism requires examination. We note three types of it, Phenomenalism, Sensationalism, and Idealism. In examining the analysis of our cognition of matter three different methods are to be distinguished: (a) Reflective Analysis resolving this cognition into secondary qualities and relational qualities of extension and incompressibility; (b) Psychogonical Analysis hypohetically tracing back this combination of percepts and concepts to association of sensational 'elements.'

But such 'elements' are in truth only antecedents, and the reality of matter as concomitant of mental changes is assumed, as naively as it is by Common Sense, throughout this analysis of matter as object perceived. The question whether (c) Transcendental Analysis can overthrow Natural Dualism to be considered later.

LECTURE IV THE SCOPE OF METAPHYSICS

In considering the relation to Mind of Matter as an object of thought we are drawn into Metaphysics. To determine its scope we must survey the marginal studies from which it is more or less vaguely distinguished, viz. Physics, Philosophy, Psychology, and Logic.

The propositions of Physics are always somehow capable of 'empirical verification' and may thus be provisionally distinguished from those of Metaphysics; the progress of knowledge may, however, bring within the range of physical inquiry questions that are now left to the metaphysician.

Similarly, and with a like reservation, we may differentiate Metaphysics from Empirical Psychology.

Similarly, too, Philosophy, so far as the synthesis of the knowable at which it aims is capable---directly or indirectly---of verification by particular experiences, is Non-Metaphysical Philosophy; whereas Metaphysics inquires what, if anything, can be known a priori.

According to this criterion---verification by particular experiences---Transcendentalism, which attempts to determine the necessary conditions of experience by reflection on experience as a whole, is metaphysical.

Rational Theology is metaphysical, but knowledge of God's existence being unattainable by observation or experiment, Rational Theology is to be distinguished not from Empirical, but from Revelational, Theology. To it belongs the final and most important problem of Philosophy---the relation of Theoretical and Practical Philosophy. But up to a certain point this problem admits of empirical treatment.

Metaphysics has been more positively characterised as Ontology or systematic knowledge of the Real or Absolute as contrasted with knowledge of the Phenomenal or Relative. On this view we may say that Metaphysics includes Ontology, or at least investigates its claims. But it cannot be maintained that science has no concern with reality. And so far the provisional view of verification previously given proves inadequate; for in distinguishing between appearance and reality the criterion is not sense-perception but certain assumptions as to the uniformity of Nature. But how is the validity of these assumptions to be tested? This question brings us to the Relation of Metaphysics and Epistemology, to be dealt with in the next lecture.

Appendix---Transcendentalism and Idealism.

LECTURE V THE SCOPE OF METAPHYSICS

Some criterion for distinguishing truth from error is a necessary preliminary to the complete unification of knowledge which we have taken to be the business of Philosophy. Such systematised inquiry into what is taken for knowledge may be called Epistemology.

Such 'Theory of Knowledge' is then an aspect or function of Philosophy. But Logic also has the same aim in some measure; how then are Logic and Epistemology to be distinguished?

According to the Kantians Logic gives only the criterion of formal truth, and no general criterion of material truth is possible

According to Mill, it gives only the criterion of inferred truth, and particular propositions obtained by direct observation and general propositions obtained by direct intuition are left to be dealt with by Metaphysics. Nevertheless Mill's Logic continually transgresses these narrower limits, and in fact a decisive separation of general Logic (or Methodology) from Epistemology is impracticable.

Nor---so long as Metaphysics is as uncertain as it is---can Epistemology be separated from it, i.e. Epistemology must include the investigation of the claims of Ontology.

Appendix---Relation of Epistemology to Ontology.

LECTURE VI RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY TO HISTORY

The so-called 'Historical Method' claims to have 'invaded and transformed all departments of thought.' Taking history to include the study of changes, whether of things or thoughts in the more or less distant past, we have to examine its claims to present, not merely facts in chronological order, but the laws of their development.

The methods and conclusions of mathematics and rational physics cannot be materially affected by the historical methods; and the philosophical problem suggested by the actual particularity of the cosmos will remain---however far back our conjectural history may read---just as inexplicable as it is at present.

It is undeniable that Biology has been 'transformed' by an evolutionary or historical method; but it is no less true that the theory of change in the remote past is altogether determined by the conclusions formed by study of the present and recent past.

LECTURE VII RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY TO HISTORY

Recapitulation of preceding lecture.

The Darwinian theory leaves the philosophical objections to materialism unchanged: the arguments for and against the immortality of the soul are also unaffected by it. The argument against immortality founded on the continuity between soulless and soul-possessing organisms is not really strengthened by the theory of Evolution and is moreover itself invalid.

Some are prepared to admit that sensations may have been completely caused by movements of organic matter, but maintain that 'general notions,' etc., cannot be derived from sensations. But the greater disparity between psychical facts as a whole and physical facts is against such an admission. We conclude then that the historical method as applied to Anthropology leaves the metaphysical problem of the relation of mind and matter where it was.

The results of the historical method applied to Psychology, or Psychogony, are often misconceived through a confusion already signalised (see Lecture III.) between psychical antecedents and psychical elements. Further, the process ascertained by this method are distinct from the meaning or validity of their products. Nevertheless it is thought such investigations may affect our estimate of these.

This question---how far the validity of beliefs can be thus affected---carries us over into Sociology. The importance of investigating the changes in the beliefs of human societies is undeniable, but the claim of the historical method to undertake the function of Epistemology and determine how far such beliefs are true or false requires examination; to this we shall pass in the next lecture.

LECTURE VIII RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY TO SOCIOLOGY

Hitherto we have taken `history' in the widest sense, as the study of past facts generally: in turning to the narrower study of past social fact it is preferable to use the term Sociological, rather than Historical, Method. The individual adult man is what he is in consequence of having grown up in social relations, and we have to study the development of the social mind which he shares.

It will be simpler to consider first the destructive, and then the constructive effect of sociological inquiry into the history of beliefs on our philosophical views of their validity. The actual diversity of successive beliefs in departments of thought such as ethics, politics, and theology, which are still subjects of controversy, tends to a general scepticism as to the validity of any; but such vague scepticism is mere weakness and without logical justification.

The question still remains whether an examination of the particular antecedents of particular beliefs may not prove their falsity. When demonstrably false opinions are found among the causes of a belief, this may suggest its falsity, but will only prove it where those opinions are put forward as reasons for the belief.

LECTURE IX RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY TO SOCIOLOGY

Recapitulation of the preceding lecture.

It is held that the study of the development of opinion will yield a criterion of truth. But it is not shown how knowledge of the laws of such development alone could establish the truth of opinion that it is foreseen will hereafter be current. Moreover, if we start by regarding the opinions of our own time as true, then---so far as change is conceived to go on in fundamental beliefs---the past having been a process through error to truth, the future must be conceived as the reverse process; the past can thus hardly give us much insight into it.

This difficulty is met by saying (1) that `knowledge is relative' and (2) that knowledge---and society generally---is progressive! But `Relativism' does not entirely remove it; since one truth at least is absolutely known---viz. that all truth is relative. The development of the past without, can thus afford little guidance as to that of the future with, this condition.

The philosophical meaning of relativity with which we are here concerned is relativity to the knowing subject, i.e. `the best approximation to truth' attainable by the mind in question. But sociologically what seems meant by relative truth is a belief expedient for the preservation or welfare of society at a given time. But this presupposes that we know wherein the social `end' consists, and this we cannot learn from Sociology.

LECTURE X RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY TO SOCIOLOGY

Recapitulation

We do not, it is said, enter on the study of the history of belief as a social fact with no other criterion than sociology affords. Knowledge is progressive and the philosphic systematisation of the most advanced or positive sciences provides us with an independent criterion enabling us to forecast the progress of those less advanced.

It is desirable to examine Progressivism first in relation to society generally. We cannot take social progress to imply any termination, but we may still ask about its direction: Is it towards increased adaptation to the condition of existence? But the change which history shows have no universal tendency of this kind.

As to the special case of changes in beliefs, the question is not primarily whether these are in the direction of truth, but whether they are in the direction of increasing the self-preservative quality of the social organism. There is, again, no evidence of such a general tendency.

LECTURE XI RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY TO SOCIOLOGY

Recapitulation

Progress in civilisation is, so far as it goes, a gain, even though it does not increase the self-preservative capacity of the particular social organism in which it occurs: also it is a gain that tends to spread to others by imitation and tradition. We cannot then measure social progress by any narrower conception than that of conduciveness to the welfare of humanity at large.

But how are we to determine this conception truly? This question leads us back to the claim of Sociology to establish a criterion of truth (X. § 2). Accepting as types the positive sciences that have finally emerged from the condition of fundamental controversy, we are to learn to develop rightly those that are still in this stage. But the controversies in politics and ethics relate mainly to ultimate ends. These are not phenomena, so that to attempt to treat them by a `positive' instead of a metaphysical method is futile. And even in the positive sciences we find not identity but diversity of methods, and a survey of these gives us no definite guidance in harmonising our judgments concerning ultimate good and evil.

We have next to examine the claim to antiquate Theology. The alleged opposition between its volitional explanations and those of science vanish when the Divine Will is conceived as orderly and so open to investigation. But it is said that Nature as known to science is non-ethical, and it must be allowed that it is opposed to the conception of a perfectly good will. A deeper opposition between Theology and Science is found in the exclusion by the latter of all teleological conceptions.

This alleged antiteleogical tendency of science involves conflict not only with Theology but with any metaphysics that retains the notion of End or Good. But in so far as Science expressly limits its inquiries to the phenomenal, it cannot collide with Theology or Metaphysics unless it asserts that nothing else can be known; and this negation is not a scientific conclusion, but the metaphysical dogma of Positivism. And even science requires teleological ideas in studying mind. The one important lesson Philosophy has to learn from Science is patience and hope.

LECTURE XII RELATION OF THEORETICAL TO PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY

Assuming at the outset that Practical Philosophy has attained to internal coherence and taking `what ought to be' to include the `good' and the `right' we find from both points of view divergence between this and `what is.'

Is this difference irreducible? At least it is not reducible by way of Psychology or Sociology---the attempt either renders ethics meaningless or involves the surreptitious introduction of ethical notions.

Rational Theology is specially concerned with this problem, but fails to work it out. If we ask why God's power does not cause the complete realisation of ideal Right, we are told that Free Will renders the admission of wrong-doing inevitable. But even granting this, physical evil still remains, and there seems to be no way of reconciling this with the goodness of God unless we conceive the Divine Purpose as externally conditioned.

So far we have assumed that Practical Philosophy is in itself coherent; but the conflict of self-interest and duty is against this view. If Theism were self-evident or demonstrable this conflict would disappear. As a reasonable but provisional assumption it may be confirmed by consistency with other like assumptions: if however such assumptions conflict we must infer that some are false.

The postulate of Moral Order is an assumption of this class, and we have now to consider the connexion of Theism and Moral Order. It is generally admitted that we may believe in the latter without Divine Personality. On the other hand (with one exception) the abstract arguments for Theism do not tend to prove Moral Order.

In the world of Duty and the world of Fact, regarded epistemologically, we discover similar relations of thought and the difference between the two from this point of view are of a subordinate kind. In the case of thought about `what is,' though error may lie in want of correspondence between thought and fact, it can only be exposed by showing inconsistency between thought and thought, as in the case of thought about `what ought to be.'