Studies in Logical Theory

Part 1

Transcriber's note:

1. Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (italics).

2. In the mathematical expressions in this text the carat character represents 'raised to the power' (example: 1+3=2^2).

3. The original text includes Greek characters. For this text file version these letters have been replaced with their transliterations, with the exception of Greek letter 'pi' which is represented as .

STUDIES IN LOGICAL THEORY

JOHN DEWEY

Professor of Philosophy

With the Co-Operation of Members and Fellows of the Department of Philosophy

The Decennial Publications Second Series Volume Xi

Chicago The University of Chicago Press 1903

Copyright, 1903 By the University of Chicago

PREFACE

This volume presents some results of the work done in the matter of logical theory in the Department of Philosophy of the University of Chicago in the first decade of its existence. The eleven Studies are the work of eight different hands, all, with the exception of the editor, having at some period held Fellowships in this University, Dr. Heidel in Greek, the others in Philosophy. Their names and present pursuits are indicated in the Table of Contents. The editor has occasionally, though rarely, added a footnote or phrase which might serve to connect one Study more closely with another. The pages in the discussion of Hypothesis, on Mill and Whewell, are by him. With these exceptions, each writer is individually and completely responsible for his own Study.

The various Studies present, the editor believes, about the relative amount of agreement and disagreement that is natural in view of the conditions of their origin. The various writers have been in contact with one another in Seminars and lecture courses in pursuit of the same topics, and have had to do with shaping one another's views. There are several others, not represented in this volume, who have also participated in the evolution of the point of view herein set forth, and to whom the writers acknowledge their indebtedness. The disagreements proceed from the diversity of interests with which the different writers approach the logical topic; and from the fact that the point of view in question is still (happily) developing and showing no signs of becoming a closed system.

If the Studies themselves do not give a fair notion of the nature and degree of the harmony in the different writers' methods, a preface is not likely to succeed in so doing. A few words may be in place, however, about a matter repeatedly touched upon, but nowhere consecutively elaborated--the more ultimate philosophical bearing of what is set forth. All agree, the editor takes the liberty of saying, that judgment is the central function of knowing, and hence affords the central problem of logic; that since the act of knowing is intimately and indissolubly connected with the like yet diverse functions of affection, appreciation, and practice, it only distorts results reached to treat knowing as a self-inclosed and self-explanatory whole--hence the intimate connections of logical theory with functional psychology; that since knowledge appears as a function within experience, and yet passes judgment upon both the processes and contents of other functions, its work and aim must be distinctively reconstructive or transformatory; that since Reality must be defined in terms of experience, judgment appears accordingly as the medium through which the consciously effected evolution of Reality goes on; that there is no reasonable standard of truth (or of success of the knowing function) in general, except upon the postulate that Reality is thus dynamic or self-evolving, and, in particular, except through reference to the specific offices which knowing is called upon to perform in readjusting and expanding the means and ends of life. And all agree that this conception gives the only promising basis upon which the working methods of science, and the proper demands of the moral life, may co-operate. All this, doubtless, does not take us very far on the road to detailed conclusions, but it is better, perhaps, to get started in the right direction than to be so definite as to erect a dead-wall in the way of farther movement of thought.

In general, the obligations in logical matters of the writers are roughly commensurate with the direction of their criticisms. Upon the whole, most is due to those whose views are most sharply opposed. To Mill, Lotze, Bosanquet, and Bradley the writers then owe special indebtedness. The editor acknowledges personal indebtedness to his present colleagues, particularly to Mr. George H. Mead, in the Faculty of Philosophy, and to a former colleague, Dr. Alfred H. Lloyd, of the University of Michigan. For both inspiration and the forging of the tools with which the writers have worked there is a pre-eminent obligation on the part of all of us to William James, of Harvard University, who, we hope, will accept this acknowledgment and this book as unworthy tokens of a regard and an admiration that are coequal.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Thought and its Subject-Matter 1

By JOHN DEWEY

II. Thought and its Subject-Matter: The Antecedents of Thought 23

By JOHN DEWEY

III. Thought and its Subject-Matter: The Datum of Thinking 49

By JOHN DEWEY

IV. Thought and its Subject-Matter: The Content and Object of Thought 65

By JOHN DEWEY

V. Bosanquet's Theory of Judgment 86

By HELEN BRADFORD THOMPSON, Ph.D., Director of the Psychological Laboratory of Mount Holyoke College

VI. Typical Stages in the Development of Judgment 127

Part 2

By SIMON FRASER MCLENNAN, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy in Oberlin College

VII. The Nature of Hypothesis 142

By MYRON LUCIUS ASHLEY, Ph.D., Instructor, American Correspondence School

VIII. Image and Idea in Logic 183

By WILLARD CLARK GORE, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Psychology in the University of Chicago

IX. The Logic of the Pre-Socratic Philosophy 203

By WILLIAM ARTHUR HEIDEL, Ph.D., Professor of Latin in Iowa College

X. Valuation as a Logical Process 227

By HENRY WALDGRAVE STUART, Ph.D., Instructor in Philosophy in the State University of Iowa

XI. Some Logical Aspects of Purpose 341

By ADDISON WEBSTER MOORE, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Philosophy in the University of Chicago

THOUGHT AND ITS SUBJECT-MATTER: THE GENERAL PROBLEM OF LOGICAL THEORY

No one doubts that thought, at least reflective, as distinct from what is sometimes called constitutive, thought, is derivative and secondary. It comes after something and out of something, and for the sake of something. No one doubts that the thinking of everyday practical life and of science is of this reflective type. We think about; we reflect over. If we ask what it is which is primary and radical to thought; if we ask what is the final objective for the sake of which thought intervenes; if we ask in what sense we are to understand thought as a derived procedure, we are plunging ourselves into the very heart of the logical problem: the relation of thought to its empirical antecedents and to its consequent, truth, and the relation of truth to reality.

Yet from the naïve point of view no difficulty attaches to these questions. The antecedents of thought are our universe of life and love; of appreciation and struggle. We think about anything and everything: snow on the ground; the alternating clanks and thuds that rise from below; the relation of the Monroe Doctrine to the embroglio in Venezuela; the relation of art to industry; the poetic quality of a painting by Botticelli; the battle of Marathon; the economic interpretation of history; the proper definition of cause; the best method of reducing expenses; whether and how to renew the ties of a broken friendship; the interpretation of an equation in hydrodynamics; etc.

Through the madness of this miscellaneous citation there appears so much of method: anything--event, act, value, ideal, person, or place--may be an object of thought. Reflection busies itself alike with physical nature, the record of social achievement, and the endeavors of social aspiration. It is with reference to such affairs that thought is derivative; it is with reference to them that it intervenes or mediates. Taking some part of the universe of action, of affection, of social construction, under its special charge, and having busied itself therewith sufficiently to meet the special difficulty presented, thought releases that topic and enters upon further more direct experience.

Sticking for a moment to this naïve standpoint, we recognize a certain rhythm of direct practice and derived theory; of primary construction and of secondary criticism; of living appreciation and of abstract description; of active endeavor and of pale reflection. We find that every more direct primary attitude passes upon occasion into its secondary deliberative and discursive counterpart. We find that when the latter has done its work it passes away and passes on. From the naïve standpoint such rhythm is taken as a matter of course. There is no attempt to state either the nature of the occasion which demands the thinking attitude, nor to formulate a theory of the standard by which is judged its success. No general theory is propounded as to the exact relationship between thinking and what antecedes and succeeds it. Much less do we ask how empirical circumstances can generate rationality of thought; nor how it is possible for reflection to lay claim to power of determining truth and thereby of constructing further reality.

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