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THE ETHICAL BASIS OF METAPHYSICS^[1]

ARGUMENT

The Place of Conduct in Philosophy: (a) The absolutist reduction of Conduct to ‘appearance'; (b) the pragmatist reaction which makes conduct primary and thought secondary. Is Pragmatism irrationalism? No, but it explains it by exposing the inadequacy of intellectualism. Ways of reaching Pragmatism (1) by justification of 'faith' against 'reason,' (2) historical, (3) evolutionary. The definition of Pragmatism. Its relation to psychological teleology. The supremacy of 'Good' over 'True' and 'Real.' Kant's Copernican Revolution, and the complication of the question of reality with that of our knowledge. A further similar step necessitated by the purposvieness of actual knowing. The function of the will in cognition. 'Reality' as the response to a will to know, and therefore dependent in part on our action. Consequently (1) 'reality' cannot be indifferent to us; (2) our relations to it quasi-personal; (3) metaphysics quasi-ethical; (4) Pragmatism as a tonic; the venture of faith and freedom; (5) the moral stimulus of Pragmatism.

What has Philosophy to say of Conduct? Shall it place it high or low, exalt it on a pedestal for the adoration of the world or drag it in the mire to be

↑ This essay, originally an Ethical Society address, appeared in the July 1903 number of the International Journal of Ethics, It is now reprinted with a few additions, the chief of which is the long note on pp. 11-12. Its title has of course been objected to as putting the cart before the horse. To which it is easy to reply that nowadays it is no longer impracticable to use a motor car for the removal of a dead horse. And the paradox implied in the title is, of course, intentional. It is a conscious inversion of the tedious and unprofitable disquisitions on the metaphysical basis of this, that, and the other, which an erroneous conception of philosophical method engenders. They are wrong in method, because we have not de facto a science of first principles of unquestionable truth from which we can start to derive the principles of the special sciences. The converse of this is the fact, viz. that our first' principles are postulated by the needs, and slowly secreted by the labours, of the special sciences, or of such preliminary exercises of our intelligence as build up the common-sense view of life.

And so what my title means is, not an attempt to rest the 'final synthesis' upon a single science, but rather that among the contributions of the special sciences to the final evaluation of experience that of the highest, viz. ethics, has, and must have, decisive weight.

[1] This essay, originally an Ethical Society address, appeared in the July 1903 number of the International Journal of Ethics, It is now reprinted with a few additions, the chief of which is the long note on pp. 11-12. Its title has of course been objected to as putting the cart before the horse. To which it is easy to reply that nowadays it is no longer impracticable to use a motor car for the removal of a dead horse. And the paradox implied in the title is, of course, intentional. It is a conscious inversion of the tedious and unprofitable disquisitions on the metaphysical basis of this, that, and the other, which an erroneous conception of philosophical method engenders. They are wrong in method, because we have not de facto a science of first principles of unquestionable truth from which we can start to derive the principles of the special sciences. The converse of this is the fact, viz. that our first' principles are postulated by the needs, and slowly secreted by the labours, of the special sciences, or of such preliminary exercises of our intelligence as build up the common-sense view of life.

And so what my title means is, not an attempt to rest the 'final synthesis' upon a single science, but rather that among the contributions of the special sciences to the final evaluation of experience that of the highest, viz. ethics, has, and must have, decisive weight.

[1]