The functional nature of the philosophical categories. Ph. D. Thesis

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THE UNIVERSITY OP CHPCAG01

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FUNCTIONAL NATURE OP THE PHILOSOPHICAL CATEGORIES

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OP THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OP ARTS AND LITERATURE IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY

BY JACOB ROBERT KANTOR

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS AUGUST, 1917

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698672 THE FUNCTIOIIAL NATURE OF TIE PHILOSOPHICAL CATE^ORIEP. Prolegomena to an Instrumental Interpretatton of the History of Philosophy. Contents. Part One - The Realistic Attitude toward Experience. Chap. I. Chapt. II.

The Pre-Athenian Period.

Physical Realism.

The Athenian Period

a) The Platonic Phase.

Epist ontological Realism

b) The Aristotelian Phase.

Methodological Realism.

."■"V Part Two - The Transition period.■Jv ‘ Chap. I. Chap. II.

The Hellenistic Period. The Alsxanirain Period

Part Three - The Romantic Attitude toward Experience. Chap. I. Chap. II.

The Roman-Christian Period. The Early Scholastic Period

Part Four - The Natural!0tic Attitude toward Experience. Chap. I. The Scholastic Period. Chap. II. Chap. III.

The Nationalistic Period. The Experience Period.,

Part Five - The Humanistic Attitude toward Experience. Chap. I. The t>ersonalistic Period. Chap. II. The British Period £hap. III. The Kantian Period Chap. IV. The Current Attitudes.

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Preface,

This work aims to iudiaate the role of categories in some phases of the main current of philosophical development.

It does not

pretend to give exhaustive lists of categories used in the determina­ tion of experience.

Jt is in no sense a history of philosophy.

It

aims only to point out that the various categories used are determina­ tions of experience, and to indicate in some sense how t o

changes in

experience bring about serious modifications in the categories or evaluations of that experience. This work being based upon the hypothesis that the philosoph­ ical categories are a -particular clas^ of evaluations of the total ex­ perience .Whether or not the philosophers are aware of the fact, it does not in all periods dlsc\iss speoific categores but fefers to the mass of them as the general attitude of the thinker or period.

In all cases the

attempt is made to describe the kind of experience which on the physical side led to the appreciation that the categories are constituent factors of experience. The appended analytical tables of contents are net intended to be indices of the material used but merely running guides to some of the antstanding arguments.

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INTRODUCTION Analytical table of contents. The futility and bareness of philosophy is owing to a failure to appreciate its aim and purpose. Philosphsrs do not fully appreciate the significance of the categories they are using,

when categories are understood as evalua­

tions of experience, which is a special case of experience, the' prob­ lems of the thinker are kept definite. V'hsn the nature cf categories is attended to, the history of philosophy takes on a new significance. as a record of abstract logical systems.

It cannot be longer considered A survey of philosophy indi­

cates the relation of the abstract formulation to concrete experience and the changes in the formulation by the demand of the concrete ex­ perience . The extreme value of category studies comes out in the con­ sideration of reoent philosophical attitude?.

In recent times the

value of concrete experience has become so prominent a factor in formulated attitudes, that these attitudes have stressed the surface aspects of experience to the neglect of some of the more significant features. A study of the categories of philosophy will serve as an aid in distinguishing them from categories of science and religion.

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INTRODUCTION Philosophy from the earliest times has had to defind itself with great valor from its enemies.

Philosophy, however, has suffered

far more from ite friends than from Its enemies.

In the earliest

time Plato1 found it necessary to protest against the condemnation of philosophy and to explain why it is attacked. has persisted

This state of affair

from that time to this and philosophy still has to

struggle to maintainiits plaoe as a legitimate discipline.

The dif­

ficulty with philosophy hasbeen a laok of appredlation of its functions and purpose.

Thus we have today the. statement of one of the most

conscientious devotees of philosophy that philosophy has claimed more and achieved less than any other, scienoe.2

This writer falls to afford

philosophy any oomfort because in common with those he oritizes, he mistakes the method and purpose of philosophy.

Mr. Russel alms to

reduce philosophy to a series of abstract and oontentless propositions which have perhaps a remote if any oonnaotion with experience.

The

history of philosophy appears to be a series of futile attempts to solve the problem of knowledge and existenoe.

In the earliest times

philosophy aimed at discovering the ultimate facts of existence in the form of the stuff of the world.

Later, with the growth of the ideas

of man’s importance, there developed the viewpoint that the problem of philosophy was really a problem of knowledge.

In still later times the

problem of philosophy was implicitely determined as an effort to ex­ plain the world in terms of human experience.

It is only in very recent

times that philosophy is beginning to make explicit to itself its func­ tion as an attitude toward actual human experience.

These various

1Theaetdtus

j.

g

174.

Republic VI,VII.

Buthydemus 307^ iy - - r w

i

°Russeli- Our Knowledge of External World. 10 ... Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

, .

philosophic^. formulations mark the stages in the empirical develop­ ment of philosophy in its attempt to realize its purpose and the means for atuaning it.

In the consideration that this development

of philosophy is entirely empirical is implied the question as to the futility of the previous philosophical formulations.

To designate

as futile all earlier stages of philosophy would he an erro? since each individual philosophioal formulation is a definite function of the experience of the time.

In assuming this attitude one precludes ipso

facto the idea of complete error in previous systems* fo* that would imply an eternal and statio standard.

From the standpoint of any

particular time it is possible to judge whether a philosophic attitude adequately represents the period.

As an example there is suggested the

extreme unsuitability of an absolute idealism or a hqman empirioism to interpret current experience.

To formulat such attitude* to day

would be to develop false and futile philosophy.

We may expect a

philosophical position to be especially cognizant of the experience to which it is a formulated attitude.

The futility of philosophy

is best illustrated by the situation in which thinkers bring back into relief positions which were developed under other circumstances.

It is

quite an erroneous method to interpret experience with categories bor­ rowed from quite other times and conditions.

In current thinking^! i

new realism appears as an attitude whioh attempts to interpret twentieth century experience with a method borrowed from the seventeenth. every such case the presHure

In

of the present experience forces a mod­

ification in the formulated attitude, but the attempt to make living experience fit into a dead shell bespeaks a lack of awareness of the philosophical function.

The genuine fuitllity of philosophy should be

carefully distinguished from the apparent.

There are two, entirely

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opposed situations here.

The apparent futility of philosophy is

explained by the fact that the critics of philosophy consider it as an absolutely rigid and permanent explanation of the world and man* The change of futility made from this standpoint obviously has no merit.

Philosophy is an attitude toward experience and naturally

enough it changes with that experience.

The genuine philosophical

futility is found in the fact that thinker?? fail to realize that philosophy is a highly oonacious evolution of experience. The problem of philosophy is tn make a systematic and valid (■< ^'oit*«*5ahip- in the Greek statesWixLwZ'Cm) tke. oame an appreciation of a greater reliance upon self. The self received an importance in this period such as it never knew before. The individual.

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became of

extreme importance in his experience and experience came to

be determined eith refrence to the individual. T$e indiwlflugl grew to depend upon himself for the interpretation of his experiences-. Science grew more humanistic and more practical. The scientists'of the time were interested more in problems' affecting of serious

human individuals than problems

cosmic import. Thedevelopment of the knowledge process which came

to a head in Aristotle was- net entirely lest with; the Stoics and' Epic­ ureans but they made a. different use of it. After Aristotle the attitu­ de toward experience became more a#d more conscious of itself and fina­ lly resulted in a more or lear, complete scepticism. In the first place there develops a critical examination of experience.. Genuine scepticism 0 i/i'-u,es its appearance fox the first time,and iijid&catea that men will r el* more upon himself than was the that the conflict between the Church and the State brought out the importance of one or the other.

The individual would, of course,

have to take a subs i d i ^ ^ p o sit ion in competition with such great powers. In the wake of the Crusades there came a growing appreciation of national existence, with a parallel solidification of the nations. Away from their own homes the men of the different nations forgot their ordinary factors of separation and realized the fact of belonging to the same groups using a similar language and having more or less the same attitudes.

The common purpose actuating all the individuals gave

a growing sense of oneness which made Christians stand over against Saraoen.

This was the condition that gave the Church its power.

The

centralization of the power of the Church received a great impetus from the Crusades.

The Church grew in pwoer and control and was abbitions

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to "be master over both spiritual and material realms.

Innooent the

Third proclaimed the presence of two powers, the Pontifical and the Royal and insisted that the former was first in importance.

This gave

the Church the privilege of interfering with political affairs.

In the

thirteenth century Bonifice VIII proclaimed the complete submission of the Royal to the Pontifical power.

He meant to insist upon nothing

less than a complete absorbtion of one by the other.

In fact, the

Church did attain to an extraordinary power in the thirteenth ceifctury. As evidence of this may be considered the facts of the condemnation and deposition of Frederick the Second, the release of the Aragonese from their oath to

I'Vs-X and the transference of Neapolitan

kingdom from Manfred to Charles of Anjou.^ The results of the completer organization of the social con­ ditions made the individuals more certain of themselves.

The indiv­

iduals become in general in closer comtact with their experiences. They become more confident in their own powers. to investigations of various kinds.

This gave an impetus

The rise of the important lang­

uages and their use by writers was evidence of a greater feeling of at-homeness on the part of the individuals.

Man turned more and

more away from the absolute dependence upon the other world and began to make use of his own powers. The domination of the Christian world by the Church placed gre: t limitations upon individual development.

The individual was

made to rely upon the authority of the Church.

The study of Aristotle

was at first atterly condemned because the Church at first failed to realize the support it could obtain from his ivritings.

When the spirit

of completeness and finality, which is contained in Aristotle, finally •1 v '+/' v v L

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'V-(rv\v^V^and unrelated to experience the work of the realist is

justified.

Some scientists assume that this is sufficient to mark the

work of science.

The point is tc appreciate what the categories in his Pliwkuonlistic Universe^ MI find myself no good warrant for even suspecting the existence of any reality of a higher denomination thant u /? that distributed and strbngd^V'^/ and flowing sort of reality that finite things swim in.”^

Correlated with this viewpoint the Pragmatic logio

is instrumental and forms a connection between one experience and anoth-

Creative Intelligence, p. 55* 2P. 2X2.

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er.

It is not a self-subsisting activity indulged in for its own sake.

Thinking is not merely formal activity, a sort of self-perpetudl func­ tion or activity.

Thought is purposive and makes for some and that is

desirable or necessary.

The criterian for the truth or error of any

element of the thought processes is the fulfillment of some definite ( (finite) aim or purpose.

In general for the pragmatic attitude t-here

are instruments of action. The categories for the pragmatic attitude are values attributed to objects in answer to some definite need or purpose.

In this attitude

the nature of philosophy comes to be adequately recognized.

We cone

fhally to a stage of philosophical development in which the functional nature of the philosophical categories are appreciated.

The categories

become definite values given to the facts of experience in order to give determination to experience.

We come to a period in philosophical

development in which experience is considered not as some give series i *

of objects and conditions or as collections of original stuffs whether rationalistic or sensationalistic.

In so far as experience is taken

A/

to be the ^ctual objects, actions, thoughts and corLditions of human beings the instrumentalist has achieved an adequate viewpoint.

Phil­

osophy upon Buch a basis must signify something in its method and results. The categories of philosophy which the instrumentalist allows oome to be narrow and restricted in their functions.

The pragmatist

tends to deny the full implications of his doctrine.

This is owing

to the fact that this attitude still is influenced seriously by the oondit ions which originally ha,sl,.t.i-ed it,

‘'Mo'"instrumentalist lc attitude

maintains its character as a negation of the absolute idealistic phil\

■"•T— — Hit

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^Moore - "Some Logical Aspects of Purpose” in Studies of Logical / 1903. ,Also Pragmatfeandniits Critics, p. lh-15. / Dewey, Essays in Experimental Logic, 1916; Creative Intelligence. /