A Pluralistic Universe: Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the Present Situation in PhilosophyJames, William
Philosophy
A Pluralistic Universe: Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the Present Situation in Philosophy
James, William
Philosophy, Modern
Professor Bergson, believing as he does in a heraclitean 'devenir
réel,' ought, if I rightly understand him, positively to deny that in
the actual world the logical axioms hold good without qualification.
Not only, according to him, do terms change, so that after a certain
time the very elements of things are no longer what they were, but
relations also change, so as no longer to obtain in the same identical
way between the new things that have succeeded upon the old ones. If
this were really so, then however indefinitely sames might still
be substituted for sames in the logical world of nothing but pure
sameness, in the world of real operations every line of sameness
actually started and followed up would eventually give out, and cease
to be traceable any farther. Sames of the same, in such a world, will
not always (or rather, in a strict sense will never) be the same
as one another, for in such a world there _is_ no literal or ideal
sameness among numerical differents. Nor in such a world will it be
true that the cause of the cause is unreservedly the cause of
the effect; for if we follow lines of real causation, instead of
contenting ourselves with Hume's and Kant's eviscerated schematism, we
find that remoter effects are seldom aimed at by causal intentions,[1]
that no one kind of causal activity continues indefinitely, and that
the principle of skipt intermediaries can be talked of only _in
abstracto_.[2]
Volumes i, ii, and iii of the _Monist_ (1890-1893) contain a number of
articles by Mr. Charles S. Peirce, articles the originality of which
has apparently prevented their making an immediate impression, but
which, if I mistake not, will prove a gold-mine of ideas for thinkers
of the coming generation. Mr. Peirce's views, tho reached so
differently, are altogether congruous with Bergson's. Both
philosophers believe that the appearance of novelty in things is
genuine. To an observer standing outside of its generating causes,
novelty can appear only as so much 'chance'; to one who stands inside
it is the expression of 'free creative activity.' Peirce's 'tychism'
is thus practically synonymous with Bergson's 'devenir réel.' The
common objection to admitting novelties is that by jumping abruptly
in, _ex nihilo_, they shatter the world's rational continuity. Peirce
meets this objection by combining his tychism
[Footnote 1: Compare the douma with what Perry aimed at.]
[Footnote 2: Compare Appendix B, as to what I mean here by 'real'
casual activity.]
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