The will to doubt : $b An essay in philosophy for the general thinkerLloyd, Alfred H. (Alfred Henry)
Philosophy
The will to doubt : $b An essay in philosophy for the general thinker
Lloyd, Alfred H. (Alfred Henry)
Belief and doubt; Philosophy -- Introductions
[2] The worth assigned in this chapter to the contradictions of
experience involves a standpoint which apparently is at variance with
that of Mr. F.H. Bradley, whose book, _Appearance and Reality_, has
occupied such an important place in the philosophical study and
controversy of the last ten years. Of course, here is not the place for
final criticism of Mr. Bradley, since the present examination of doubt
is no such scrutiny of experience as his; it is far short of what would
make a complete philosophical argument. Nevertheless, a word or two
expressing the nature of the difference between his view and the view
advocated here can hardly be impertinent. Thus, if I read him rightly,
Mr. Bradley has argued from the paradoxes of experience to the complete,
hopeless phenomenality of experience, while in this study of doubt the
argument has been from the paradoxes of experience to a thoroughly
realistic experience. Again, Mr. Bradley's Absolute is able to include
the phenomenal, the relative and contradictory, only because this is so
unsubstantial as to offer no resistance, while here there has not even
been any question of inclusion. _All experience_, our position has been,
_is informed with reality; its very contradictions hold an otherwise
phenomenal, relative, changing experience close down to a real world_;
and this position, I repeat, is at variance with what Mr. Bradley has
_seemed_ to say. See, however, a short article, "Relativity and
Reality," in the _Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific
Methods_, Vol. I, No. 24, November, 1904.
[p.154]
VII.
THE PERSONAL AND THE SOCIAL, THE VITAL AND THE FORMAL IN EXPERIENCE.
Contrasts such as those in the title of the present chapter, the
personal and the social, the vital and the formal, or instrumental, are
always dangerous to clear thinking, and yet in spite of the danger no
thinking can avoid them. They can be only relatively true; the terms in
which they are couched cannot fail, sooner or later, from one standpoint
or another, to make an exchange of the very things to which they apply,
since opposition, as must be remembered, is always a most effective
mixer, and therefore they can only punctuate the naturally chiaroscuro
character that belongs to all articulate thinking. Nevertheless, used
with self-control, they are distinctly serviceable.
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