Positivism, Empiricism and Metaphysics

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Positivism, Empiricism, and MetaphysicsAuthor(s): J. LairdSource: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, Vol. 39 (1938 - 1939), pp. 207-224Published by: on behalf ofWiley The Aristotelian SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4544327Accessed: 28-07-2015 18:18 UTC

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2/19

Meeting

of the

Aristotelianociety

at 55,

Russell

Square,London,

W.C.1,

on May 22nd,

1939,

at 8

p.m.

XI.-POSITIVISM,

EMPIRICISM,

AND

METAPHYSICS.

By

J.

LAIRD.

BY positivism

in its most

general

sense

I

mean the

theory

that

if

you

want

to

know

anything

about

anything

you

must

either make

an

appointment

with one

of the

sciences

or else

be content

to be cheated. Outside

the sciences

there

is

no information.

The

poets

may beguile

you

or exalt

you

but

they

cannot

tell

you

anything.

Theologians

may bewilderyou, philosphersmay rackyou, and rhetoricians

may

soothe

you.

But

none

of

them can tell

you

anything.

Wayfaring men,

though

they

have no academic degrees,

may

sometimes

tell

you

something;

but

that

is

because

they

are

untutored

scientists.

They

are the scientists

in

the street,

and

they

can tell

you

something,

not because

they

are

in

the

street,

but because

they possess

the smatter-

ings of a middling science.

It

may

be

well

to

make a

brief

pause,

and

consider

some

of the

things

that

this

theory may convey.

In

the first

place

we

may

ask

What is

a

science

?

as

interpreted

by positivists.

Obviously there

is room

for

much

debate

about such

a

question.

Is

history

a

science ?

Is ethics

?

Is

aesthetics?

In

some cases,

for

example,

regarding

history and

sociology, positivists

may

have to

walk

warily.

In

general,

however, they

have

made up

their minds.

If

your

science,

so

called,

abjures every

mood

except

the

indicative, and

makes the renunciation

without

reserves

and

with

persistent

determination,

it

is

the

sort

of science

that

positivists

call

by

that name.

Any

other

sort

of

science

is an

impostor.

Again, there

may

be disputes

about

the

boundaries

and

mutual relations or lack of mutual relation between the

2

B

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3/19

208 J. LAIRD.

positive sciences. It would be expecting too

much

to

suppose that everythingou may reasonably want to consider

must belong to some one appropriate science with the same

obviousness as a nose belongs to someone's face.

Such

difficulties, however, need not be serious in principle.

There need not be any great degree of truculence in suggest-

ing that the positive sciences themselves are capable

of

instituting an effective boundary commission. Certainly,

if

some one

particular science,

for

example physics,

is

disposed

to lord

it

over the

others there may

be

tension among

the

positivists themselves and they may

have some

difficulty

in concealing their domestic hostility from the outside

world. The idolatry of physics may in fact be a crude

sort

of

belligerent metaphysics.

But

there

need

be no

sufficient reason, in the nature of the thing, for more

than

departmental bickering.

Another debatable problem has to do with the generality

of

the

sciences.

Granting

that the

indicative mood

in the

positive

sciences indicates

fact ,

there

might be general

as well

as

particular facts, and the logic

in the

world might

be

the

most

general

fact

of

all.

Here

again

the

positivist

may have to be careful, but need not be dismayed.

He

need

not be

opposed,

in

principle,

to the

idea

that there are

pervasive and indeed universal facts in all actuality and

that

such

general

facts

may properly pertain

to the

positivist's

province.

If

in

the past metaphysicians have been

the

supreme

or even the

only specialists

about these

generalities,

that

in

itself

is no

reason

why positivism

should

not now

annex this

healthy region

and abandon the rest of the

sick confederation

of

ancient

metaphysics. The positivistic

specialist in these wide generalities,one may say, might be a

very good positivist.

He would be

a

bad

positivist only

if

he

mixed

his

proper

business with

the dreams of

ghost-

seeing metaphysics, mistaking necromancy

for

philosophy.

Mutato nominehe may even have sympathy and a certain

admiration

for some

few

of

the

philosophers

of

the past

regarding

some few

of their

too

unguarded pursuits.

He

will

only

be more

circumspect.

That,

in

general,

is what

I

take positivism to be and

to



4/19

POSITIVISM,

EMPIRICISM,

AND

METAPHYSICS.

209

mean.

I

must

now

attempt

to

examine

its

relations to

empirlcism.

Empiricism, as I understand that theory, says something

more than

that

EL7ELrEyL'a

r

experience

is

the

key,

and

indeed, the master

key,

that

opens

all

the

doors

that any

philosopher

can

ever

open. That

in

itself

would be

rather

an ambitious

assertion,

but

most

empiricists,

as

I

apprehend,

are

more

ambitious still.

In

their view

,7TrEtpL'

actually

contains and

indeed

actually

is all

that is

known,

and

human

uLrEtpL'0a

s all that human beings ever will or ever

can

know.

Being

more

familiar

with

English

than with

Greek

I

shall, for

the future, speak

of

experience and

only very seldom

of

efiLrEtLa.

In

the

English way

of

speaking

I

take the

empiricist's

assertion to

be that all our

knowledge

is some

sort

of experience

and that

all

that

we know

is also

some sort of

experience , if

the word

also has here any meaning. When I speak of know-

ledge

in this

connexion

I am

using the

term

in

the

wide

and, perhaps,

in

the

loose

way in which it

is

often

used,

and not

in

the narrow

way

in which

it

is

sometimes used.

I

do not

mean simply

knowing

for certain

with invincible

clarity

-supposing

that

there

is such

knowledge.

I

mean to

include

confident surmises

and

tenacious

opinions

and uncertified if stubborn beliefs. I am referring

generally

to

cognition.

In this

wide

sense

of

knowledge

I

understand empiricists

to be

asserting

that no non-

experience

is

strictly

so

much as

imaginable

and that there

is

no

knowledgeable

process

that is

not

experience

.

If any

philosophers

and, indeed,

if any

other

people main-

tain

the

contrary

of

either

of

these

propositions,the

reason,

according

to

all

good

empiricists,

is that certain

features of

the situation may sometimes be rather obscure, and

that

the

obscurities

have seduced

some

negligent

if

intelligent

people

into

making

assertions that

may

seem

to be but

are

not

intelligible.

Accordingly, the

fundamental

question

would seem to

be

What is

experience

?

.

If

that is left

vague,

empiricism

is

vague.

If

that be

taken

for

granted,

empiricism

is

something unanalysed, something that might be true but is

2

B2



5/19

210

J.

LAIRD.

put

forward in a

happy-go-lucky spirit.

I

do

not

think

we

need be interested in the swashbuckling type of empiricism.

Therefore we have to

address

ourselves

seriously

the

problem of

what

experience

means.

In

the

ordinary usage of the

English language

the voice

of

experience

is

the

voice

of

memory although,

since

we

talk

about

the

experience

of

the

race

we

may add

record to

memory and

also, perhaps, the sort of

ancestral

quasi-memory that may be thought to be involved in the

lessons of

pre-history. In the main,

however,

the exper-

ienced

man

is the

man,

who,

to use the

vernacular,

has

been

through

the

mill

and

can use

his

experience

because

he has relevant memories

to draw

upon.

He is

thus

contrasted

with the

novice,

and

is credited with

memory

either

in

the sense of

possessing

a clear

recollection

or of

having acquired

a

serviceable habit for

dealing

with

certain

types

of

circumstance.

Memory, however, in

any of the stricter

senses

in

which

the

word

may

be

used,

is

always

a

personal

affair. It is

not

simply

retro-cognition.

It is each

man's

retro-cog-

nition

of his own

past.

Hence, very

naturally

we

have a

strong and,

I

think,

a

justifiable

inclination

to

say

two

things

about

experience

strictly

understood. The first is

that

it must be first-hand personal experience, and the second

is

that,

in so

far as it is remembered

irst-hand

experience,

the

gravamen

of

the

enquiry

shifts

towards

the

original

fact, towards

that which is

remembered,

towards that

in

our

past

that

we

can recall

but,

on its

original

occurrence,

was not

a past

but a

present experience.

I

shall say

something about each of

these points.

The firstalthough a seductive is a very complex charmer.

Personal

experience

should be

contrasted with

impersonal,

but

it

is

not

plain

what

impersonal experience

could

be.

Even if

an

experience,

or

some part or element of

an exper-

ience were shared with

other

experients, that

which is

common

to all

would

be

part

of the

experience

of each.

If

impersonal at all, it

would

therefore be

impersonal

in certain rather arbitrary senses and in these only.

In

short,

the

contrast between

personal and

impersonal



6/19

POSITIVISM, EMPIRICISM,

AND METAPHYSICS.

211

experience seems

to be sterile

and so I

shall pass to the other

part of the phrase first-hand personal experience and

consider

what

should be

meant by first-hand .

Presumably,

first-hand experience

should be

contrasted

with

second- or third-hand

experience.

What,

then, is this

contrast

?

I

am

not

prepared to

attempt a satisfactory

answer but I

can

enumerate

some

prevalent

suggestions. One would

be that second-hand experience is hearsay. Another

would

be that

second-hand

experience is

indirect. Yet

another

would be

that second-hand

experience is

represen-

tative.

A

fourth

would be

that

second-hand experience is

inferential.

As to

the first,

I agree

that we may distinguish

between

knowledge by acquaintance,

on the

one hand,

and know-

ledge

by report, on the

other hand.

The only

question

would

be whether

knowledge by

report is,

strictly

speaking, anything

other than

knowledge

of

a

report.

As to

the second, I

would not

deny that a

distinction

between

direct and

indirect

knowledge

may

be a

useful

finger-post

towards the whereabouts

of

a

difference

that

may

be

vital. Such a

difference,

however,

requires

a

much

more

precise description.

If

there

could be know-

ledge by simple inspection, or, as pure phenomenalists

aver, by

literal

coincidence

of

appearance

with

reality,

I

should

agree

that such

knowledge

would

be

direct

.

But

I

doubt whether

there

are

any other

legitimate uses

of

the term.

As to the

third,

if

the

contention

be

that

we

may have

experience,

not of

X,

but

only

of X's

deputy,

the

problem

would be whether, strictly, we have anything more than

experience

of

the

deputy.

There is therefore

a

reasonable

doubt

whether

any experience

is

other than

first-hand

in

this sense.

As

to the

fourth,

there

is

certainly

a difference between

the

premisses

of

an

inference and the

conclusion,

but it is not

equally

plain

that when

a

conclusion

is reached our know-

ledge or experience of it is second-hand. Obviously such

inferred

experience

is

quite

different

from

what

I

have



7/19

212

J.

LAIRD.

called

knowledge

by

report .

The

latter would

corre-

spond to accepting a statement on authority instead of

arguing

it

out for

ourselves and

drawing

the

correct

conclusion.

It

is

sometimes

said

that

first-hand

experience

must

really

mean

immediate

experience .

If

so

the contrast

is

between

immediate and

mediate

experience,

and

I

think

it

should be

allowed that

mediate

experience

requires

and

is based upon immediate experience. I do not know,

however,

what

could be

meant

by mediate

except

either

representative or

inferential

.

Consequently

the last

two

paragraphs,

taken

together, ought to exhaust

this one.

Abandoning, for

the

time being,

the

interpretation

of

the

phrase

first-hand personal

experience

,

let

us

turn

to the other

point

formerly

mentioned,

i.e.

to

the sense

of

experience

whose

primary

implication

is

that

such

experience

is

memory-laden.

Here

I

think

it is

plain

that

analysis shows

that the

so-

called

primary

implication

cannot

really be

primary

but

must

be

secondary.

Memory

must be

based

upon

an

experience

that

was

first of all

present and

is later

recalled,

in

whatever sense

recall

may be

legitimately

asserted.

True, there would be a difference, and a difference that

might

be

important,

between

being

aware

of

something

for

the first

time and

being

aware of

it later

along

with its

roots

in the

past.

I

do not

think,

however, that

such

a

distinction,

however

important

it

might

be,

could be

all

or

most that is

meant by

the

distinction

between

experience

and

inexperience.

We

must

therefore

try

to

find

some

distinguishing mark of experience that would apply

to

the

present

as well

as to

the past.

If

we

cannot discover

such a

distinguishing mark

we

should, I

think,

be

simply

postponing the

problem

by

attempting

to

make it

turn

upon the

presence or

absence of

memory.

The

most

usual

and the

most

robust form

of

empiricism

asserts

that

the

c'Eirutpta on

which

the theory

is

based

must

be sense-experience. Indeed a robust empiricism of this

type is

what

is often

meantby

the term.

It

is

plain,

however,



8/19

POSITIVISM,

EMPIRICISM,

AND

METAPHYSICS.

213

that

there are

difficulties

here since we do

have

imaginative,

noetic, and other forms of experience that appear not to

be

sense-experience and

yet to

be

thoroughly authentic

types of

experience.

The

answer

usually

given is

that all these

other

types of

experience,whether

they

are

near-sensory

or, in

appearance,

downright

non-sensory, turn

out, on a

sufficiently careful

analysis, to

be

species of

debilitated

sensations.

Even

if

that were true, however, it might be doubted whether the

theory itself could

be

very robust

when

it

is

forced to support

so

many

decrepit

dependents.

For die

they will

not.

There

really

are such

experiences.

Let us

suppose, however,

that

the

strong do

all the work,

supporting all

the

children, and

hospital

patients and

old-

age

pensioners, just as

will have

to be

done

in

civilized

countries if

the

birth-rate

continues to decline.

In

that

case it

is

surely of

the utmost

moment

to be

able to tell

by some

plain

independent mark

who

the

workers

are

and

how

they are

distinct from

the

drones. It

is here that

I

find robust

empiricism

most

unsatisfying.

I

am

told

that

whatever

else may

be doubtful,

sense-data

at least are

indubitable and so

that a

philosophy built

upon

them is

built

upon a

rock.

I

am assured

that

verification

in

terms

of themis honest-to-goodness verification. That is good

news;

but can it

be

confirmed

?

I

allow

that

if

I

sense a

pain

I

really do sense

it,

but

I

do

not

see

that

any

important

consequence follows. For

if

I

imagine

a pain

I

really do

imagine it. The

interminable

popular disputes on the

question

whether

imaginary

pains

are or

are not

real

pains do

not

help

me

to

make

up my mind on this question and if I begin to consider the

state

of

dreaming

I

am not

less

perplexed.

A

bull

in a

night-

mare

may

be

not less

affrighting

than

a bull in

a

china

shop.

The

fright

exists

in both

cases.

What about

the

bull ?

Robust

empiricists

tell me that

a

real bull is

a

sensed

bull,

and that

a

sensed bull is

a name

for

certain

sense-data

striking upon

me

with force

and

vivacity

and

surrounded

by a specific kind of associative penumbra of causal and

other indications

of

real

presence.

I

still want to

know



9/19

214

J.

LAIRD.

how

I

am

to

distinguish

the

real

bull

from

the

dream-

bull that looks so very like his real brother, and why I

should

attend

so

very

carefully

to

the

first and

iorget

the

second as

promptly

as I

can.

To

be

brief,

I

believe that

the

robust

empiricist is

asking

me to

make

a huge

assumption,

and, at the

same

time,

very

unkindly, is

forbidding

me

to

investigate the

assumption.

He believes,

like

the

rest of

the learned

world, that

the

only

way to acquire much sound natural knowledgeis to observe

first and

theorize

later.

This

means,

not that

every

sensum

is

to be

accepted

tel

quel,but that

certain

selected observed

events

are the

best

foundation

for

natural

theory.

Negligent

perceptions,

fuddled

perceptions,

hallucinatory perceptions

are

either

partially

or

wholly discredited.

A

long

critical

process is

presupposed in

discriminating

between

such

perceptions. The

result

is

held

to

be,

if

not

wholly

satis-

factory, at any rate as nearly

satisfactory as

a man can

legitimately hope

for.

Let

it be so.

What

robust empiri-

cists

appear to

me to

do is

to forget

all

these

preparations,

to

forget

the

fineness of

the

boundaries

between

the

best

and the

inferior in

this

kind,

and

(thinkingonly of

the

best)

to

applaud

all

sense

data as

if

they

belonged to the

highly

superior

class

of

scientifically

reputable

observations.

That

is what I think is so very questionable. There are too many

sense

data

on our

hands for

the

catholic

approval that

the

theory so

lavishly

bestows. In the

alternative,

it is

far

too

difficult to

be

sure

what is a

sense-datum

and what

only

looks

very

like

one. The

case of

dreams is

here

peculiarly

interesting.

Ask

a robust

empiricist

whether he

does

not

mean

that

the

workers,

according to

his theory,

must be

wakingsense-data and indeed must be very wide awake ?

Ask him

furtherwhy it

should be

so, and how

he

distinguishes

the

workers

from the

blacklegs.

I do not

believe

that he

has

an

answer,

and

therefore I

am

sceptical about

the

principal

premiss of

his

theory,

not to

mention

any

minor

perplexities.

While I

am dealing

with

this

topic

I should

further

like

to

observe that the Kantian theory of a mixed sensational

empiricism,

a

hybrid

empiricism

as

opposed

to

the pedigree



10/19

POSITIVISM,

EMPIRICISM, AND

METAPHYSICS. 215

empiricism

we have

just been

discussing,

might be hard

pressed to escape very similar criticisms. The Kantian

theory (which

seemsin its own

way to

be

a

sort

of

positivism)

is

that the only

knowledge

worthy of

the name

is

scientific

knowledge, and

that scientific

knowledge

is

the intellec-

tualizing

of

sensation.

Sensations

are

given,

but

science

has

not

begun

unless the

given is

rendered

noetic.

If this

statement

means that all

sensations

are

adamantine

(or irrefragably given) data, mixed sensory empiricism

would

encounter precisely

the same

difficulties as

pedigree

sensory

empiricism. If, on

the other

hand,

the contention

were

that

only some

ensations, a

chosen few,

are irrefragable

material for

conceptualization, we

should

have to

ask how

we

know

the irrefragable

ones.

Both

pedigree sensory

empiricism

and

mixed

sensory empericism

appear to

agree

about

one grand

metaphysical

assertion,

viz. that sense-

experience and

matter-of-factness

coincide.

The former

is

the

sole

evidence of

the

latter

because it is

somehow

the

same

thing.

It

is

therefore

ineluctably

sufficient evidence.

Without this

grand

assumption it would not

be

plausible to

say,

as

mixed

sensory

empiricistshabitually do

say, that

all

our

conceptions

would bombinate in

the

void unless

they

were ballasted with

sense-experience. It is

possible (al-

though I doubt it) that mixed sensoryempiricists might

be

able,

in

principle,

to

discriminate

effectively

between

good sensory

ballast and

bad,

while pedigree

sensory

empiricists ought

to be

quite

indiscriminating in this

matter, but, in the

main,

both of

them

make the same

assumption

about

the

relations

between fact

and sense.

If

there are

general as

well as

particular facts,

concepts

in se and per se need not be empty. They would only be

general,and

they

might

always, if

true, refer to the

general

aspects

of

existence.

Conceptions

and

sensations might

each of

them

be

poor

in

one

way (a

different

way in each

case) and

rich in

another way (also

different for

each of

them).

Further, it

need not be

supposed

that sense

and

intellect

exhaust

between

them all the

possible

income of

knowledge. Imaginations and dreams may also be sources

of

revenue.



11/19

216

J.

LAIRD.

In

this

preamble to the

discussion

of

the relations

between

empiricism and positivism I have been concerned, almost

exclusively,

with the robust

theory

of

sensory

empiricism.

That was

because sensory

empiricism, in

some

form,

is

the

most

usual form

of

the theory;

but

of course

any

other

interpretation

of

1E7TELpta would yield

a

characteristically

different

type

of

empiricism.

I

have

no

space

here to

pursue these

other forms but

would

say

in

general

that if

action

be regarded as philosophically preferableto sensation,

it

may

be doubted

whether the

advantages are

very con-

siderable.

It is

plausible

enough

to say,

as

I

think Ward

said, that

experience

is the

process

of

becoming expert

by

experiment.

We

tend to think of

the

experienced

man as

the man

who has

handled

the stuff. On these

lines,

however,

we

should

probably have

to

conclude

that the

sensory

experiences of

manipulation were

what was

central,

and

although

there

might be some

reason

for

according

a

privileged

position

to this

spccial class

of

sensations,

the

costs

of

the

enterprise

might well be

prohibitive.

Let us now

abandon our

preamble,

and

simply

make

use

of

it

for the

purpose of

examining

the

relations

between

empiricism

and

positivism.

We

have

here,

I

think, two

questions.

The

first is

whether

a consistent philosopher, being an empiricist, would have

to

say

I

am

therefore

a

positivist

. The

second is

whether a

consistent

philosopher,

being

a

positivist,

would

have to

say

I

am,

by inference,

an

empiricist

.

I

find

immense

difficultyin so

much

as

conjecturing what

the

answer to

the

first of

these

questions

would

be, but

that, no

doubt,

is

because

I

personally find

it impossible

to believe that all our knowledge does consist exclusively

of

first-hand

sensa.

Suppose,

however, that

this

was the

simple

truth.

In

that

case,

I

think it might

be

reasonable

to

say that all

sense

experience is

simply

descriptive of

sense data

and

abjures every

mood

except

the

indicative.

I

don't

think

a

robust

sensory

empiricism

could be

scientific

and

I

don't

believe

it could

make

sense.

But if

it did I

daresay that it would be positivistic.

We

may

check

this result by

applying it

to the

modern



12/19

POSITIVISM,

EMPIRICISM,

AND METAPHYSICS.

217

(so-called) logistical

positivism. This theory, accepting

certain reputable sciences, finds that there are two classes

of them. These are,

respectively, the formal class (i.e.

logic and

formal

mathematics) and the mixed formal-

material class. Except by a piece of downright

effrontery,

the

formal

class

could

not be

said

to

consist of sense-experi-

ences.

But

we are

told

that

it consists of tautologies

and

tells

us

nothing

about

the world.

A

difficulty

is

whether,

if tautological, it could tell us anything about anything.

The conclusion would seem to be that in so far as any science

tells

us

anything

about the

world

it is

empirical, and

that

this assertion is the

positivistic part of so-called logistical

positivism.

The answer to the

second question might seem to be

easier.

Positivists

accept

the sciences

in

the belief

that

they

and they alone describe

facts

and

tell

us

about

the world

.

Empiricists

believe that fact

or the world (at

any

rate quoadnos) consists of

sense-experiences. If a science

in

pursuit

of

facts

or

of

the world

could dispense

with

everything except

sense-experience

it

would

be a

purely

empirical positivism.

So

positivism and empiricism would

coincide.

The pathetic feature of this situation is that

positivists

are torn between faith and sight. By faith they discern

that

sense-observation

is

the

only begetter

of

positive

science.

By sight they

learn

that no actual science is

anywhere

near

being

an

instance

of

pure empiricism.

Hence they have either to blink or

to hope.

I

shall

say

nothing more about their

modes

of

hoping. Quench not

hope,

for if

hope dies,

all

is

dead. Their

ways

of

blinking,

however, seem to me to be rather more objectionable. A

favourite

method

is the

method

of

initial

stipulation,

of

making

a

bargain

in

advance

and

sticking

to

it

advienne

ue

pourra.

Thus

it

may

be

stipulated that

no

sense-

observations are

to

receive

attention

except

those

that

a

physicist

of

repute

would

accept

at

the

present day,

that

so-and-so's observations of this

kind are to be amplified

beyond the actual fact of someone's sense-experience in

the

way that physicists

usually

find

convenient, and

that



13/19

218

J. LAIRD.

this highly sophisticated

translation

of

experience

and

of fact is just what up-to-date philosophers call

ex-

perience

It is not surprising

that such an attitude should

proclaim

itself

anti-metaphysical.

It is

utterly impatient

of all that

it

calls

philosophy

. It stipulates

such philosophy

away.

This

brings me to the

third part

of my

subject, the nature

of metaphysics

and its

relations to positivism

and to em-

piricism.

The proper definition

of metaphysics

is a topic that

may

reasonably be

debated

at a length

unsuited to

the present

occasion.

I shall therefore be

briefer

about

it than

I

should

like

to

be and shall say,

in a gulp,

that

an enquiry

is metaphysical

in proportionas

it sets itself

with

determina-

tion to pursue

ultimates. It

follows

that the

science

of

metaphysics,if

there

were one,

would

be just the science

of

ultimates.

I

believe

that the

above

statement

is more

adequate

than most,

and shall

account

it

a

short

but telling

description

of

metaphysics.

If that be true the

relations,

firstly, between

metaphysics

and empiricism,

and secondly

between metaphysics

and positivism

could not be peculiarly

mystifying.

As regards

the

first of these relations

I

would

suggest

that empiricism, in its philosopical significance, is a species

of

metaphysics

and is nothing

else. It

is a doctrine

about

ultimates, namely that,

for any

human thinker, the

only

ultimates are contained

in human 4,uL7rEpia.

Beyond these

(it declares)

humanity

can never

go.

Consequently,

if any

philosopher

in

the name of

his

empiricism

beats

the

big anti-metaphysical

drum,

he

must

be using the term metaphysics in a different sense from

mine;

and

although

nobody wants

to make

more of

a

fuss about words than

he

can

help,

I

should

not be afraid

of

a

challenge

about the

verbal propriety

of

the

terms

I

am

using.

The

sort

of

metaphysics

about

which the

modern

anti-metaphysical

party is wont

to

complain

so

loudly

seems

to me to

be

a

spectre

that

the

party

itself

has

conjured up, the sort of ghost that an inferiority complex,

strictly

interpreted

and

of

a philosophical

order,

might



14/19

POSITIVISM, EMPIRICISM, AND METAPHYSICS.

219

easily engender, emancipation

from which

might be salutary

to a few minds. I shall have something to say about this

spectre later. For the present, however,

I

propose to assume

that empiricism

is

a species

of

metaphysics, whether it

asserts roundly

that

all is

experience ,

or with

greater

apparent modesty

that all that can

be detected

or

verified,

directly

or

indirectly, strongly

or

weakly,

is

experience

Is positivism also a metaphysics

?

I think it might be. If anyone says I am a positivist

because

I

believe,

after what seems to me to

be

an

adequate

investigation

of

all serious opposing views, that descriptive

statements

in

the indicative

mood are

all the

genuine

truth

that

there is, and because

I

believe that the

positive

sciences are

the

repositories

of all

such statements

where they

are

at all

precise

his

positivism,

I

submit

is a

kind

of

metaphysics.

Its rests

on

a basis

of

professed ultimacy,

and does

so

self-consciously and

even

truculently.

Such a

theory,

it is

true, might

be

removed

from

metaphysics by

a single

short and

mincing step.

That

would

happen

if

the

positivist adopted

an

attitude

we have

already

examined

viz.

if

he asserted that he was

a

positivist because he was an

empiricist.

His

positivism

in that case

would

be a

deduced

thing and

therefore

not

ultimate.

On

the other

hand it

would be quite possible to limit one's empiricism to one's

positivism,

that

is to

say

to

assert

the

sufficiency and the

ultimacy

of

the

latter.

Again, however, it would be possible to be an agnostic,

that

is,

an

un-metaphysical positivist,

or

at least

to

seem to

be

so

if

the

difficulties inherent

in

such

a

view

received

insufficient attention.

An agnostic positivist would say something like this

I don't know whether the positive sciences yield The

Truth, and

I

know nothing about some particular variety

of

'

truth

'

that is

ultimate

and

irrefragable. Consequently

I

am

a

modest and

not

an

unguarded positivist. In other

words

I

am

not

a

metaphysician-

De

ultimis

non

curo .

Such

a

position would

be

speciously tenable-until it

was challenged on the ground of being unintelligibly ver-

cautious, making provisional

statements in which

the very



15/19

220

J.

LAIRD.

provisos

themselves

uwere

provisional,

and so

ad

infinitum.

There lies the agnostic positivist'sprincipal peril ; but in so

far as he can

keep

his balance

upon

his

tight-rope

he would

appear

to

be

avoiding

metaphysics.

I

therefore infer

that positivism

may attempt

to

be

un-metaphysical

although

its success

in such

an

enterprise

must

be accounted

doubtful.

In

general,

however,

a

positivist,

is either a

metaphysician

of a

kind,

or bases

his

positivism on metaphysical grounds. If it were not so, a

positivist

would either

give

no

reason

for

his attitude

or

would give

a

reason

that,

on

his

own

showing,

would

be

merely provisional

and

therefore

not

ultimate.

If

he

knew

that

he

was

doing

that

very

thing

he

would

ostensibly

be

refraining

from

metaphysics

out of

policy,

but

would

covertly

be

admitting

that there

were

ultimate

(that

is to

say

metaphysical)

reasons for his

attitude.

Let

us now

consider

what sort of

metaphysics is

repudiated

by

philosophers

in

the

name

of

their anti-

metaphysics.

Returning

to a

point

formerly

mentioned, we may

say

this:

If

empiricists

affirm

that

nothing

can be known

except

in so far as

it

is

sensed, they may

reasonably

be

asked

whether

this

cardinal

affirmation

Everything

anyone knows must be sensed is itself sensed. Some

empiricists,

I

suppose,

would

reply

in

the

affirmative.

To them

I

have

nothing

to

say.

I

can

neither

understand

nor

misunderstand

them well

enough

to be

able to

com-

municate

with

them

in

any

useful

way. On

the other hand

those

who

reply

in

the

negative,

even if

their

empiricism

is

not

quite

robust

(just

because

they do reply in

the

negative)

are at any rate conversable animals. I would point out

to them

that

they

do

not

repudiate

quite

everything

hat

isn't

sensed

and

so

that

they

do

not

amalgamate the

meta-

physics

that

they

repudiate

with

the

non-sensory

that

they

do

not

wholly

repudiate.

Indeed

it

seems

clear

that the

majority of

empiricists-

even

pretty

robust

ones

like

Hume-do not

repudiate

all

that is non-sensory but only a certain kind of reputedly

non-sensory

entity.

(Hume, for

instance did

not say

that



16/19


AND

METAPHYSICS.

221

there

could be no

meaning

in the formal

relations

of

ideas . He denied that there was any

matter-of-factness

in such

formal

relations.)

In

other words, what

vitiates

metaphysics,

according to most empiricists,is its belief that

there

are

supersensible things-a

deus

absconditus,

mere

noiimena and the like.

They

deny supersensible (and

sub-sensible

?)

matter

of

fact.

If

by

matter-of-fact

we

mean things,

they deny that there

are any things, which

either cannot be sensed or, more moderately, cannot be

verified, strongly

or

weakly, by

sense-observation.

If

by

matter-of-fact we mean that

which

has the status and

functions of what is

sensible, they

deny

that

anything super-

sensible

(or

sub-sensible

?)

has

this

status

and

these functions.

Such views

belong to the order

of

ideas

according to

which

metaphysicians

are

expected

to

hang their heads

in deserved

confusion when they are told that they are

blind

men in

dark rooms looking

for

black cats

that

aren't

there. It is

possible

that some

philosophers

have been

properly rebuked by the babes

who

babble in

this way.

For the

most part, however, the accusation is plainly

puerile.

To

hold

that there is

something super-sensible

in

much or

in all

of

our

knowing

need not

imply

that there

are

super-sensible

entities

closely

resembling

sensible

entities

in all (or in many) relevant ways. The doctrine, indeed,

is quite

consistent with the view that we have (often or

always) to

employ super-sensory nstruments

in

our dealings

with the

sensory itself.

I

have tried

to

suggest, however,

that

the alternatives either

sensory

or

sensory-noetic

need not

be

exhaustive. If

by

matter-of-fact

you

mean

sensed

or

inferable from what

is

sensed

it

follows by

a

simple analysis that non-sensoryprocesses may be directed

upon

the

sensible.

If,

on the other

hand, you mean

actuality

or

reality by matter

of

fact

,

it is

a

problem

for

metaphysical investigation

whether the possi-

bility

of

sensory

discernment

is an

ineluctable

requirement

of actuality.

I

can see nothing absurd-for instance-in the

suggestion

that our sensory acquaintance with actuality is flashy

rather than opulent, more

obtrusive than solid. That



17/19

222 J. LAIRD.

would be consistent with

the

belief that

everything had

obtrusive sensible features although it had also unobtrusive

non-sensory reserves, whence the rather precarious inference

might perhaps be drawn that in default of the obtrusive

sort

of

evidence

no

other

evidence

would be so

much

asvisible.

It

would also, however,

be

consistent with

quite

a

different interpretation

viz. that while

every

sort of

cognition

selects

from

reality,

unless

it

goes astray,

nevertheless

the

different types of selection need not select the same sort of

thing. Thought,

for

instance

may

select

generals,

real

generals,

while

sense

may

select

particulars,

real

particulars.

If so there could be no noetically selected particulars. No

black feline apparitionswould be there

.

But it

would not

follow that

nothing would

be

selected

by

a

true

noetic

process. It would only be the case that

no

particular ould

be selected

in

the

no&tic

way.

In

the above

short

discussion

I

have

spoken

of

the

super-

sensible rather than

of the

sub-sensible,

but

a

robust em-

piricist, as it seems to me, could have no greater sympathy

with micro-physics

than with

theology.

He

might try,

it is

true, to resolve

his sense

data into

minima

visibilia,

minima

tangibilia and the like; but he would still be

a

long way

from micro-physics and would

have no more

promising

means of transport than the average man who contemplates

a

journey

to the moon.

There

is,

of

course, nothing

new

in

this observation, and nothing

unfamiliar

in

its

principle

to robust

empiricists.

The

point, however,

has some

general

interest.

The sort of

metaphysics that positivists repudiate

would seem again

to be an

idol specially devised

to

be

smashed, a sort of clay pigeon.

There is

no

need,

it is

true, to withhold assent,

and

even

admiring assent,

from

a

large part

of Comte's best-known

contention.

In

so far as

sweeping generalities

can be

trusted,

it is accurate as well as stimulating to observe that most

human

science did

pass through

a

theological

and

a

meta-

physical stage before

it

became more scrupulously positiv-

istic. In that sense positivism marked an advance. Con-

sider

the

theological stage.

In

its

interpretation

of

the



18/19


AND

METAPHYSICS. 223

Book of Nature, theology, allowing

that it

contained

much

primitive science,

was

definitely

naive in its general

outlook.

Mythopoeic cosmogonies exaggerated their explanatory

potency

in natural

knowledge.

Indeed,

there was an

ad-

vance when theology became

so

very like a species of

astronomy, provided

that the

divine

astronomy

was not

itself mythopoeic. Even then, however,

it

was not enough

to

insist

(with Epicurus

and

Lucretius) upon

the

primacy

of

sensation

in man's

knowledge

of the rain of the atoms.

It was necessary to pursue positivistic methods much more

resolutely

with a more faithful technique

of

observation.

That

was

how

the

lynx

of

modern science,

at

a

later

date,

grappled so successfully

with

Cerberus.

The same would

hold

of

Comte's objection to the

meta-

physical stage

of science

. In

admitting

the criticism

there is

no

need to disparage the

lamps

of arm-chair

reason.

What has to be held is only that the light of reason , in

this sense, cannot suffice for

the

regions

where new

and

vastly improved methods

of illumination are required and

may

become available

with sufficient

patience.

From

that

point

of

view

it is

largely

irrelevant whether the

meta-

physical stage

of

metaphysical

science

was

or was not

vitiated by

a

naive idolatry

of

class-names,

in short

was

a

sort

of

faculty metaphysics

in

the sense

in

which

opium

was supposed to send

men to

sleep

in

virtue of its

dormitive

powers. The point

is

that

the

particular

go

of

natural

events is

not

to

be

ascertained

by

the mere intellectual

juxtaposition

of

supreme clarities,

sense-experience being

used primarily

for

purposes

of

illustration.

In

many

of

the sciences

sense-experience

does

not

merely

limit the

abstract

a

priori possibilities.

It

establishes

a

large part of

the sciences, so far as they areestablished.

When all these things have been

said, however, it remains

clear

that a positivist's

reasonable complaint is against a

meddling and unguarded metaphysics,

and not against

metaphysics

as such. Before

men

had learned how much

of our natural

knowledge

cometh

by observation,

meta-

physical

science

may

have

believed

itself

to

be, and may

actually have been, in the van of human progress. When

2

c



19/19

224

J.

LAIRD.

that lesson

had

been learned

in certain

quarters,

meta-

physical sciencewas in the cart, rubbing shoulders with other

dangerous

antiquities.

Unless it

can be

shown,

however,

both

that all

significant

questions

are

of the

type

that

the

natural

sciences

find it

convenient or

fashionable to

investi-

gate

and

that

all

the natural sciences are

faithful to

un-

metaphysical

positivism

in all

their

incomings

and

in

all

their

outgoings, there

is no

adequate

reason for

wiping

metaphysical scribbles off the slate. There may not be

transcendentals or

other

metaphysical

things

in

the

same

sense as

there are

turnips, and

acids,

and

living

tissues.

In

short

there

may

be no

metaphysical

things.

If

so

metaphysics

would

not be

comparable

to

botany

or to

chemistry

or

to

histology. But

unless

all

that is knowable

is so

comparable

it does

not

follow in

any

way

that

a

meta-

physical

pursuit is

always

a

wild

goose

chase.

It is

transparently

evident

that

modern

logistical

positiv-

ism

has

advanced

a

long way

beyond

Comte's

base,

so far

indeed

that it

may no

longer

look to

Comte for

supplies.

I

don't

know

much

about

the

historical

question

implied,

and,

except

for

Neurath,

I

have

not

noticed

much

appreci-

ative

reference to

Comte

among the

logistical

positivists I

have

studied.

In

substance,

however,

it

appears

to

me,

I hope not without some justification, that the logistical

positivists

of

the

present

day do

accept

mathematical

logic

as

scientia

vera,

and

further

believe

that

all

that can

be

known

about

matter

of fact

must

somehow

be

verifiable in

personal

sense-experience.

I

have

difficulty

in

believing

that

the

logistical

part of

their

theory

squares

with

the

empiricism

of

their

account

of

verification

(in

short

with

what is

often

thought to be their positivism ) and am confident that

the

pragmatism, the

behaviourism

and

the

stipulations

of

the

material

language

of

many of

their

theories put

a

severe

strain

upon

a

sensitive

philosophical

conscience.

But

however

that

may be

I

submit

that

they

are

impatient

metaphysicians

and

are

not,

as

they

prefer

to

think,

com-

pelled

to be

anti-metaphysicians

in any

reasonable

sense.

Documents

Positivism, Empiricism and Metaphysics