Philosphy Without Metaphysics

Edmond Holmes

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781317297154
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophical Metaphysics

Philosophy means 'love of wisdom, ' but author Edmond Holmes fears the encroaching dominance of intellect over feeling. In this title, Holmes argues that metaphysics' reliance on intellect and pure reason undermines the study of philosophy. Rather, Holmes suggests a return to intuitional philosophy, combining thought and feeling. First published in 1930, this title will be ideal for students interested in Philosophy and Western Civilisation.

CHAPTER II EMPIRICAL METAPHYSICS

DOI: 10.4324/9781315647159-3

Is there such a thing? Metaphysics may be defined as the attempt of intellect, divorced from emotion and spiritual intuition, to “know reality”, to “understand the universe”. Bradley, to whom we owe this definition, defines intellect (implicitly) as thought dis-“entangled” from “other functions of our being” and “attempting a pure development of its own”, guided by “the principles of its own distinctive working”. This definition severely restricts the range of metaphysics. Intellect, as so understood, works under licence from formal logic. The Law of Contradiction, with its associated laws, controls all its operations. Metaphysics, in this sense of the word, cannot be empirical; for it is one of the functions of pure thought to examine the credentials of experience as such, and to study the different kinds of experience, with a view to distinguishing reality from illusion in their respective contents. An empirical investigation of experience is necessarily inconclusive. It has no starting-point and arrives at no goal.

What place, then, is there in metaphysics for an empirical system? We can find a place for it only by using the word “intellect” more loosely than Bradley allowed himself to do. In physical science we see intellect, divorced from emotion and spiritual intuition, doing sound exploratory work and achieving cumulatively successful results, the value of which admits of being practically tested. The basis of its operations is acceptance of experience as trustworthy and revelational, as bringing the mind into contact with realities of various kinds. Through its analysis of the data of experience it penetrates into the heart of the world which it explores. But it makes no assumption as to the status of that world or of any of its subworlds. It leaves that question untouched. And the experience which it analyses with indisputable success is sense-experience; experience, through the bodily senses, of the outward and visible world. With emotional experience, intuitive experience, spiritual experience, supernormal experience, it has little or no concern. So far as it does concern itself with these it ceases to be strictly scientific.

Emulous of the achievements of physical science, thinkers who wish to know reality and so understand the universe, have asked themselves whether the empirical method which answers so well in the hands of the scientist could not be adopted by the metaphysician. In answer to this question the New Realism has come into being, and seems for the moment to be in the ascendant in the field of speculative thought. This has been the practical answer. But is it the right answer? Are the foundations of the New Realism securely laid?

Philosophy, as I understand the word, is nothing if not empirical; for it is through experience that the spirit of man unfolds itself, and, as it unfolds itself, distils wisdom from its widening and deepening knowledge of reality. But I am using the word “experience” in its widest and deepest sense. I am not restricting its meaning, as physical science does, to sense-experience, to the contact with the world which we establish through our bodily senses. And I am entrusting the task of interpreting experience to emotion as well as to intellect, to intuition as well as to reason, to judgment—in a word, the judgment which is made possible by the co-operation of all man’s higher powers. But empirical metaphysics, if it is to remain on an intellectual basis, must follow the lead of science in its attitude towards experience. It must leave untouched, at any rate in the initial stages of its inquiry, all experiences which are emotional, intuitive, spiritual and—above all—supernormal. For such experiences vary widely from man to man, from people to people, from age to age, and are therefore unamen-able to a strictly intellectual treatment; whereas the data of the bodily senses, which are “constant and common, shared by all and perpetual in all”, offer a fair field for the impartial, disinterested investigation which intellect, unbiased by emotion, is able to conduct. Physical phenomena are facts, in the sense that “what seems to all men is”. They seem to all of us to be endowed with actuality, with objective being. It is with facts, not with dreams, or visions, or fancies, or fugitive feelings, or incommunicable experiences, that intellect begins, when it sets out, in the service of science, on the empirical quest of ultimate truth. And it is with facts that intellect must begin if it is to set out, in the service of metaphysics, on the empirical quest of ultimate reality.

Thus empirical metaphysics enters the field of speculative thought with an implicit assumption which must needs predetermine the issue of its inquiry. It assumes at the outset that analysis of sense-experience is the road to the fundamental reality which has its counterpart in ideal truth, and that what is ultimate in such analysis is self-existent, intrinsically real. This is how it interprets the universe at the beginning of its inquiry, and this is how it will interpret it at the end. It must confine its attention, at any rate while it is laying its own foundations, to sense-experience. Its exclusive reliance on intellect for the solution of its problems demands that it shall do this. But its pretension to the title of metaphysics demands that it shall invest the objects of sense-experience with a status which science, as science, has never claimed for them. The question of status, of intrinsic reality, counts for nothing in science proper. In metaphysics it is the thinker’s first and last concern.

Such are the limitations which empirical metaphysics is bound by its own charter, so to speak, to impose upon itself. That we may the better realize how serious they are and how farreaching are their consequences, let us study a typical system of empirical metaphysics. In Bradley’s Appearance and Reality I studied a typical system of a priori or logical metaphysics. In Professor Alexander’s Space, Time and Deity empirical metaphysics has found a thoughtful and courageous exponent. Let us see what he has to tell us as to the world in which we find ourselves.

He starts with certain sweeping assumptions, which are disputable, to say the least, but which, if one may judge from the light-hearted and almost casual way in which he formulates them, he seems to regard as self-evident truths. He begins by identifying philosophy with metaphysics. This assumption, which is pregnant with important consequences, is disputable, and I have elsewhere given my reasons for disputing it. Philosophy is the quest of wisdom, a quest which demands the co-operation of all man’s higher powers. Metaphysics is at best a branch of philosophy, a branch which condemns itself to perpetual sterility, so far as its aim coincides with that of philosophy, by its blind reliance on intellect for the solution of the problems which philosophy investigates.

“But science”, says the metaphysician, “relies on intellect for the solution of its problems, and solves them (within the limits which it imposes on itself) with undeniable success. Why may not metaphysics do the same?” Professor Alexander answers this question by assuming off-hand that metaphysics (alias “philosophy”) is a branch of science. “Philosophy”, he assures us, “is itself one of the sciences delimited from the others by its special subject-matter”, and “its method will be, like theirs, empirical.” He repeats this statement in various forms, but he makes no attempt to prove it. There is, however, a passage in the Introduction to his work, in which he betrays uneasiness as to the security of the foundations which he has laid. He is examining possible objections to his interpretation of experience and of the part that mind plays in it. “It would be a legitimate reply”, he tells us, “to these remonstrances, that the existence apart from mind of the various groups of physical things and the existence of minds as one group among the existences of the world, as thus postulated by the empirical method, may be taken as a hypothesis for investigating reality. Without troubling our minds as to how things are related to our minds, or how we are ourselves related to our minds, let us make the assumption mentioned and see what comes of it. This is of the essence of the empirical method as a scientific method. You do not raise these questions in science. You assume the existence of life or matter, and you ask what it is. Let us in philosophy make the same assumption, and see whether in the end we do not get illumination as to our minds and knowledge.”

Here our author touches on the very feature of scientific method which distinguishes it from the method which metaphysics, if it is to fulfil its self-imposed mission, ought to pursue. Metaphysics, to use our author’s words, “investigates reality”. Science does not. Science investigates phenomena. It accepts the physical world, the world of physical phenomena, a world of appearances, as worthy of investigation, and it proceeds to investigate it. It makes no assumption as to the reality of that world. Individual scientists, tempted by a quasi-professional prejudice in favour of their own subject-matter, may do so. Science as such does not. Science divides the world into sub-worlds, each of which has its own appropriate science or sub-science’—the world of Space and Time; the world of “matter”; the worlds of life—plant life, animal life, human life, and so on. Corresponding to these worlds we have the main branches of science—mathematics, physics, chemistry, physiology, biology, psychology. No question is raised by science as to the status of these worlds. In the words of a distinguished scientist, “the truth we seek in science is the truth about an external world propounded as the theme of study, and is not bound up with any opinion as to the status of that world”.¹

¹ The Nature of the Physical Universe, by Professor Eddington.

The scientist is bound by his charter, so to speak, to ignore the question of status. The metaphysician is bound by his charter to consider it. And consider it he does, whether he intends to do so or not. The assumption that intellect is competent to interpret the universe is an assumption as to the status of that aspect of the universe which intellect is unquestionably competent to investigate. The assumption that metaphysics is a branch of science is an assumption as to the status of the physical world. Science does its work without let or hindrance because it abstains from raising the question of status. If a metaphysical system is to enjoy the same immunity from metaphysical criticism, it too must abstain from raising the question of status. But this it cannot do without forfeiting its charter and so ceasing to be metaphysical.

In adopting the phrase “empirical metaphysics”, Professor Alexander commits himself to an examination of the credentials of experience. But the task is scarcely to his liking. His treatment of what is surely an all-important question is somewhat perfunctory. He seems to have an uneasy feeling that an empirical investigation of experience can lead to no certain conclusion. In the passage from his Introduction which I have recently quoted he shows himself impatient of controversy, and claims that his work shall be judged, as the work of science is judged, by its results. But in making this claim he is himself fixing the standard by which the results of his work are to be judged. For he asks to be allowed to assume that his diagnosis of experience is correct. And this assumption will control the evolution of his system and determine the measure of its worth. When he has finished his work weshall have got exactly as much “illumination” from it “as to our minds and knowledge” as he has given us in his initial assumption.

What do we mean by experience? There are always two factors in it—a subject and an object. For the purpose of empirical metaphysics the subject of experience is of course the mind of man. Mind is a particular aspect of what we call spirit, or soul, or self. If the objects of experience are real things—and the empirical metaphysician must needs assume that they are—it is the percipient mind which guarantees their reality. So one instinctively assumes. But, for Professor Alexander, experience seems to guarantee its own validity, and in doing so to guarantee the reality of its objects. Where, then, does mind come in?

Before we can answer this question we must ask another. There are many kinds of experience. Of which kind is Professor Alexander thinking when he lays the foundations of his system of empirical metaphysics? His choice is, as we have seen, determined for him by his aim as a thinker. If he is to be both empirical and metaphysical, he must confine his attention to the kind of experience with which intellect, alone and unaided, is fully competent to deal. Of all the varieties of experience there is only one which satisfies this requirement—sense-experience, the experience which we gain through the exercise of our bodily senses, senses which are equally developed—or with variations which can easily be corrected—in all normal persons.²

² It is true that Professor Alexander recognizes the existence of a mode of apprehension which he calls “intuition”, by which Space and Time and the primary or “categorical” qualities of things are apprehended; but he is careful to remind us that “primary qualities are apprehended by intuition through sensation”, that intuition is “contained in sensation and masked by it”, and that “all our experience is provoked through the sense-organs”. (The italics are mine.)

The objects of sense-perception are what we call material things. They belong to the outward and visible world, by which we are surrounded, and which seems to us to be real. Science can analyse these things into impalpable elements; but it bases its analytical work on acceptance of them as phenomena, as things that “appear”, and are of sufficient interest to us to be worth investigating. The scientist, as a scientist, does not raise the question of their reality; but as an ordinary man he is satisfied that they are at least provisionally real. At any rate, it is in dealing with such things that intellect is most at home; and the empirical metaphysician has therefore no choice but to postulate their reality. Their genuine reality, whatever that may mean: provisional reality is not enough for him. He is satisfied, in his own mind, that the objects of sense-experience are real, and that through analysis of them lies the pathway to ultimate or intrinsic reality—the ideal object of his metaphysical quest. In other words, as the subject of experience, as one who perceives, thinks, knows—in a word as mind, he guarantees the reality of the objects of experience.

Does it not follow that the guarantor is in some sort more real than the objects of his guarantee; that his reality is at least of a higher order than theirs? To this question the empirical metaphysician answers No. He cannot afford to answer Yes. The objects of experience are for him real things—real enough to serve as the base of his metaphysical adventure. He knows at the outset of no higher reality. If mind were more real than the objects of its experience, he would have to explore it, in his quest of ultimate reality, instead of exploring the material world; and intellect, alone and unaided, would be unequal to so arduous a task. Mind, therefore, must be content to take its place among the objects of its own experience.

On this point Professor Alexander is emphatic. He tells us that “the effect of the empirical method in metaphysics is severely and persistently to treat finite minds as one among the many forms of finite existence, having no privilege among them except such as it derives from its greater perfection of development”. Is not this a case of putting the cart before the horse? The empirical method may necessitate a certain conception of mind. It by no means follows that that conception is true. The conception must justify itself to us on other grounds than that a certain metaphysical system requires us to accept it. No attempt is made to prove that the mind is but one of the many objects of its own experience. The nearest approach to an argument in support of this assumption is the statement that “the mind as an entity superior both to things and to passing states, is never experienced, and does not enter therefore into the view of an empirical metaphysics”. This argument, if one may call it so, takes too much for granted. From the air of assurance with which it is advanced, one would imagine that it could not be challenged. But it can be. I for one am ready to challenge it. The mind, as an entity superior both to things and to passing states, is for me the only object of what I may call a self-certifying experience, the only object of experience which presents itself to me as intrinsically real. My experience clashes with Professor Alexander’s, and flatly contradicts it. Who shall arbitrate between us? I accept the experience of self-awareness as a revelation of reality—the revelation of self to self. Professor Alexander, having assumed at the outset that sense-experience is alone valid, and having satisfied himself that mind, as it presents itself to me (and to most men), is not the object of such experience, denies existence to it as a self-conscious entity, real in its own right, expels it from its “privileged position”, and, regarding it as a dethroned usurper, relegates it to the humble position of one of the non-mental objects of its own “contemplative” experience.

But what is the value of an experience, the objects of which are real, but the subject of which, quâ subject, is an illusion? The duality of subject and object is of the very essence of experience. If either factor in the process is to be absorbed into the other, the object must be absorbed into the subject. For the subject is the guarantor of reality; and it may conceivably be able to raise the object to its own level by taking it up into itself. But if the subject, quâ subject, if mind quâ mind, quâ spirit, quâ self, is unreal, its guarantee becomes ineffective, and the objects of its guarantee, with itself as one of them, disappear into an evanescent mist of illusion. An experience which is real on its objective side only is no experience. It is as unre...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Title Original Page
• Copyright Original Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• I. Logical Metaphysics
• II. Empirical Metaphysics
• III. Popular Metaphysics
• IV. Intuitional Philosophy
• Conclusion