Creative Intelligence: Essays in the Pragmatic AttitudeDewey, John
Philosophy
Creative Intelligence: Essays in the Pragmatic Attitude
Dewey, John
Philosophy; Pragmatism
We should note at the outset that in regarding the act of knowing as
incurably "psychical" and "subjective" analytic logic accepts a
fundamental premise of the logics of rationalism, empiricism, and
idealism which it seeks to reform. It is true that it is the bold
proposal of analytic logic to keep logic out of the pit of epistemology
by excluding the act of knowing from logic. Nevertheless analytic logic
still accepts the subjective character of this act; and if it excludes
it from its logic it welcomes it in its psychology. This is a dangerous
situation. Can the analytic logician prevent all osmosis between his
logic and his psychology?[22] If not, and if the psychological act is
subjective, woe then to his logic. Had the new logic begun with a bold
challenge of the psychical character of the act of knowing, the prospect
of a logic free from epistemology would have been much brighter.
With the desire to rid logic of the epistemological taint the
"experimental logic" of the pragmatic movement has the strongest
sympathy. But the proposal to effect this by the excision of the act of
knowing appears to experimental logic to be a case of heroic but fatal
surgery. _Prima facie_ a logic with no act of knowing presents an
uncanny appearance. What sort of logical operations are possible in such
a logic and of what kind of truth and falsity are they capable?
Before taking up these questions in detail it is worth while to note the
character of the entities that "merely are" with which analytic logic
proposes exclusively to deal. In their general form they are "terms" and
"propositions," "sense-data" and universals. We are struck at once by
the fact that these entities bear the names of logical operations. They
are, to be sure, disguised as entities and have been baptised in a
highly dilute solution of objectivity called "subsistence." But this
does not conceal their origin, nor does it obscure the fact that if it
is possible for any entities that "merely are" to have logical character
those made from hypostatized processes of logical operations should be
the most promising. They might be expected to retain some vestiges of
logical character even after they have been torn from the process of
inquiry and converted into "entities that merely are." Also it is not
surprising that having stripped the act of knowing of its constituent
operations analytic logic should feel that it can well dispense with the
empty shell called "mind" and, as Professor Dewey says, "wish it on
psychology." But if the analytic logician be also a philosopher and
perchance a lover of his fellow-man, it is hard to see how he can have a
good conscience over this disposition of the case.
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