The Monist, Vol. 3, 1892-1893 : $b A quarterly magazineVarious
Philosophy
The Monist, Vol. 3, 1892-1893 : $b A quarterly magazine
Various
Philosophy -- Periodicals
Mr. Peirce, regarding determinism as that view which does not recognise
the freedom of will, has an original and in our conception a wrong
view on the one hand of natural laws, which are to him mere habits
acquired by the world, and on the other hand of chance, or arbitrary
sportiveness, (i. e. that which is not determinable by law,) which he
identifies with mind and with the spontaneity of freedom. Mind is to
him the beginning of all. Mind remains mind, according to his view, so
long as it is irregular, producing out of its own undetermined being
sporadic effects without order or consistency. As soon as mind takes to
habits, it grows mechanical; by creating regularity it disappears; and
the result is matter in motion according to mechanical laws. Matter,
accordingly, is said to be “effete mind.” Law in our view is the divinity
of nature; according to Mr. Peirce it is the termination of nature’s
irregularities: it comes to suppress her freedom and to supplant her
mentality by mechanicalism. An element of pure chance, however, survives,
which, appears in the free will of man, in miracles, and in nature’s
irregularities, and this element of pure chance will remain until in the
infinitely distant future, mind becomes crystallised into an absolutely
perfect, rational, and symmetrical system. Such is in brief Mr. Peirce’s
view of the rôle played by mind in the world-process.
Mr. Peirce’s views of chance and law seem to come to the rescue of
certain theological dogmas, which represent the world-order as the
product of a divine mind. We doubt very much whether Mr. Peirce’s
position be tenable even from the standpoint of the scientific
theologian. For the order of the world, as it appears in natural laws,
must be, and is recognised even by the theist, as part and parcel
of God’s eternal being. The scientist who formulates _sub specie
aeternitatis_ certain facts of nature, say the “how” of gravitating
bodies, describes a certain quality of God himself; he describes
something that is immutable, eternal, everlasting; it is not the whole of
God, but it is certainly one feature of Jahveh, of that which is, was,
and will be as it is.
In contradistinction to Mr. Peirce, we recognise, that the regularity
of the whole is preserved in the specificalness of its individual
particulars, that there are samenesses in this world of changes and
diversities, and that if all reality is regarded as being essentially
the same throughout, all the diversities and apparent irregularities can
very well be explained as resulting from peculiar forms, combinations,
and relations. Furthermore, we recognise that natural laws are compatible
with the spontaneity of nature and that the necessity with which a free
man acts according to his character, does not reverse his freedom of will.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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