The year 1959 was one of philosophic celebrations. Many volumes, monographs, and papers marked the centennial of John Dewey. France, rather more than the United States, similarly celebrated Henri Bergson’s birth. And all over the world scholars commemorated the publication of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species. One is tempted to see in all this the end of an era and to expect new beginnings in the next decade.
However, the fortunes of philosophy do not change with football game rapidity. No evidence exists to support predictions of any great upheaval. Provided that the political situation permits a continuance of civilized living, the sixties will not differ much from the fifties. No doubt an old era has ended; but it did not end abruptly in centenary celebrations. Somewhat of a new era may well be upon us; but it did not commence January 1, 1960. Rather, the situation calls for an estimate of the coming success or failure of philosophic trends already under way.
To dispose of some preliminary matters, I would say that neo-realism, despite the protests of its aging exponents, as well as the older neo-Hegelianism, has no future. Marxism is indeed a serious political threat, though not an intellectual one. The movements now in existence that promise to exert influence in the next decade are instrumentalism, logical positivism, existentialism, and neo-orthodoxy. The first two are definitely secular, the fourth is clearly religious, while existentialism, though sometimes atheistic, is so closely related to neo-orthodoxy that it fits better into the second classification.
INSTRUMENTALISM
John Dewey was fundamentally disturbed by the nineteenth century scientism which reduced the universe to “nothing but” atoms in motion. Since atoms alone were real, the real world was devoid of colors, sounds, enjoyments, and human values. Traditional philosophy, with its theory of values based on medieval metaphysics and theology, was unable to meet the scientific viewpoint. According to Dewey therefore the main problem of modern philosophy is to formulate a single method by which both the values of daily life and the advances of modern science can be harmoniously handled.
Dewey’s solution begins with the instrumental role of ideas. Despite common sense and almost universal acceptance, the Newtonian view that science gives knowledge of the real world is discussed as thoroughly mistaken. Ideas are not descriptions of what is or has been; they are plans for future actions. Science does not discover antecedent reality; it constructs new realities. To give an example: water is wet, water is good to drink, but water is not H2O. The chemical formula is part of a laboratory method for producing wet water or explosive hydrogen. In other words, scientific concepts do not define natural objects; they specify laboratory operations.
Therefore science cannot render void the real world of colors, sounds, wet water, and human values.
Just as chemical concepts are the directions for experimental procedure, so the same scientific methods can be used to formulate moral concepts for moral experimentation. The concepts of physical science change decade after decade. So too, according to Dewey, moral concepts must change when we want new results. There are no fixed, absolute, divinely given norms. New moral principles must ever be devised to manage new problems.
What is true of physics and morality is also true of logic. The Aristotelian law of contradiction was based on Aristotelian science and must with it be discarded. The laws of logic are like civil laws. They are devised to meet specific problems and as the problems change, quickly or slowly, so must the laws of logic.
LOGICAL POSITIVISM
The technical nature of logical positivist publications makes brief discussion difficult and misleading. Logical positivists are much more interested in the details of science than Dewey was, and their contributions in these special areas are correspondingly better. For this reason it seems likely that logical positivism, even if its most general theses are untenable, will continue in existence for a longer period of time than Dewey’s philosophy. Both schools, for example, accept the opertional definition of concepts. But Dewey’s system tends to fall apart because the connection he makes between science and morals is not firm. Logical positivism, on the other hand, with its tendency to dismiss morality as emotive nonsense can tie its future to operationalism in scientific isolation.
Similarly both schools are behavioristic. Dewey traces all knowledge back to sensori-motor co-ordinations; mind, he says, is a complex of bodily habits formed in the exercise of biological aptitudes; and “knowledge … lives in the muscles, not in consciousness.” Logical positivists assert, “Methodological physicalism and operationism are part of a general positivistic tradition. Their psychological counterpart is the school of behaviorism” (International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Vol. I, Part II, pp. 671–672).
Now, although behaviorism is untenable wherever found, it can maintain itself longer as a narrowly scientific method than as a part of a general system. Then too, at the expense of some consistency, Herbert Feigl accepts the “methodological outlook of behaviorism but … certainly not with any unqualified rejection of introspective techniques.” Philosophically objectionable as this may be, it is scientifically more viable.
Where logical positivism extends beyond the confines of science and ventures into the realm of epistemological generality is in its theory of meaning and verification. Propositions that cannot be verified by sensory observation are meaningless. Therefore moral principles are emotive nonsense. There is, however, one important exception to this theory of verification. Logical and mathematical principles are neither meaningless nor verifiable. They are formal, definitional, tautological; they are stipulated methods of procedure. Although Dewey is not in complete accord with the logical positivists (cf. Dewey, Logic, pp. 284–289), their view of logical and mathematical principles is similar to Dewey’s position that we must alter the laws of logic as our problems change.
EXISTENTIALISM AND NEO-ORTHODOXY
If Marxism has a bright future because of subversion backed by military might, neo-orthodoxy to a lesser extent depends on nonintellectual factors. These are chiefly the social power of the large Protestant denominations, and, with existentialism, the great fear which the international situation excites. If this fear subsides, existentialism most certainly and neo-orthodoxy most probably will lose ground to a more reasonable viewpoint. At the same time, the latter can count on the growing influence of Karl Barth, who may yet overshadow Brunner, Niebuhr, and Tillich.
Specific theological details are not within the scope of this article. Attention is directed rather to the philosophy which neo-orthodoxy and existentialism have taken in common from Sören Kierkegaard. Its distinctive feature is the repudiation of reason and logic.
Throughout the history of Christianity there has always been a certain amount of anti-intellectualism. An extreme form is found in the negative theology of mysticism. Less extreme forms are found in devout and well-intentioned (but mistaken) distinctions between our poor finite human logic and God’s transcendent thought. “Rationalism,” of course, has always been opposed by the most learned and orthodox theologians; but a misunderstanding of what they meant by rationalism has aided the rise of irrationalism.
In contrast with the statement of the Westminster Confession that “The whole counsel of God … is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture,” the neo-orthodox (for example Brunner) assert that faith must curb logic and that “straight-line” implication will lead us astray. In other words, we may accept certain statements but we must reject their necessary consequences. Not all the neo-orthodox are so explicitly radical as Brunner, yet the Kierkegaardian—neo-orthodox—existentialist complex must be judged to be basically anti-logical.
CRITICISM
When the repudiation of necessary implication is pointed out and the consequent inconsistencies of detail are listed, the straight-line path that criticism will follow hardly needs explanation.
The indispensability of logic for all intelligible communication is also the basis of criticism against Dewey and the logical positivists. They are all wrong when they allow for a replacement of the law’ of contradiction. This law is not a formal stipulation that can be changed by mutual consent. It does not grow out of scientific procedure in such a way that a different procedure would produce a different logic. On the contrary it is eternally a fixed requisite to rational thought and intelligible speech.
Against Dewey it might be added that he never shows how scientific procedure can generate his human values; while against logical positivism there is the particular point that its principle of verification is self-destructive. For there is no sensory observation that would verify the assertion that sensory observation is the only gateway to knowledge. Either then it is nonsense, or it is a stipulation and definition. But in the latter case there is no compelling reason for stipulating it. Surely we can all the more dispense with the verification principle, if we can dispense with logic.
For similar reasons, those linguistic theories, often conjoined with the four philosophies under discussion, also fail which hold that language (or only religious language) is all symbolic and never literal. The exclusion of literal meaning guaranteed by the law of contradiction precludes a rational decision as to the significance of the symbol. A cross could be the symbol of the crucifixion; the crucifixion could be the symbol of the wrath of God; but then the wrath of God would have to be a symbol of nobody knows what.
These philosophies with their inherent difficulties, all so briefly explained, must pass away—Dewey’s perhaps first. They will probably survive the decade and neo-orthodoxy may last even longer. But insofar as there will always be some desperate people, and insofar as a nonmetaphysical science of verifiable fact will always have an appeal, similar types of philosophy will continue to occur. And, insofar as all men are by nature prejudiced against the biblical concepts of revelation and free grace, the passing of instrumentalism and neo-orthodoxy will not inaugurate the millennium.
Jacob J. Vellenga served on the National Board of Administration of the United Presbyterian Church from 1948–54. Since 1958 he has served the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. as Associate Executive. He holds the A.B. degree from Monmouth College, the B.D. from Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary, Th.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and D.D. from Monmouth College, Illinois.
