Creative Intelligence: Essays in the Pragmatic AttitudeDewey, John
Philosophy
Creative Intelligence: Essays in the Pragmatic Attitude
Dewey, John
Philosophy; Pragmatism
"More of the same" means here intensive magnitude and in this connection
at all events it begs the question. Bergson's polemic seems perfectly
valid against such a use of the notion. But kept in logical terms the
case seems clearer. It is said that we reason in such a case by
"analogy." We do, indeed; but what is analogy? The term explains nothing
until the real process behind the term is clearly and realistically
conceived. What I shall here suggest holds true, I think, as an account
of analogical inference generally and not simply for the economic type
of case we have here to do with. Reasoning is too often thought of as
proceeding from given independent premises--as here (1) the fact that
hitherto the driving we have most enjoyed and the sailing we have most
enjoyed have been _fast_ and (2) the fact that the motor-car is _fast_.
But do we accept the conclusion because the premises suggest it in a way
we cannot resist? On the contrary, stated thus, the premises clearly do
_not_ warrant the conclusion that the motor-car will be enjoyable. Such
a statement of the premises is wholly formal and _ex post facto_. What,
then, is our actual mental process in the case? The truth is, I think,
that we simply--yes, "psychologically"--wish to try _that promised
unheard-of rate of speed_! That comes first and foremost. But we mean to
be reasonably prudent on the whole, although we are avowedly adventurous
just now in this particular direction! We, therefore, ransack our memory
for _other fast things_ we have known, to see whether they have
encouragement to give us. We try to supply ourselves with a major
premise because the new proposal in its own right interests us--instead
of having the major premise already there to coerce us by a purely
"logical" compulsion as soon as we invade its sphere of influence. And
confessedly, in point of "logic," there is no such compulsion in the
second figure: there is only a timid and vexatious neutrality, a mere
"not proven."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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