Collingwood's Development of the Scale of Forms

In considering
the place of the Essay

in
Collingwood's work it is instructive to consider the
development of his attitude towards dialectic,
xxii
EDITORS' INTRODUCTION
degrees of truth and reality, the ontological proof,
and one of the central themes of the Essay, the
scale of forms.
Collingwood began lecturing on Aristotle's
De Anima in
1912. Although
he observed
Aristotle's use of the scale of forms in De Anima
(EPM
102), this manner of presentation and
analysis did not become ingredient in his own
thinking until later. In his first published work,
Religion and Philosophy (published in 1916 and
written over a three-year period from 1912)
Collingwood did not take a dialectical approach. In
fact, his procedure there betrayed certain tendencies which later in the Essay he classified as errors.
For example, in the earlier work, where he found
there to be overlap between religion, theology,
and philosophy, he identified the categories and
asserted their identity, thereby committing what in
the Essay he dubbed 'the fallacy of identified coincidents' (EPM 48). In writing Speculum Mentis (an
explicitly dialectical work) a few years later
Collingwood reconsidered their relationship and
drew an important distinction between implicit and
explicit features of experience. In notes inserted into
his copy of Religion and Philosophy Collingwood
commented on his rejection of realism:
This book was written in (and before) 1914(begun 1912)and
represents the high-water mark of my earliest line of
thought--dogmatic belief in New Realism in spite of an
insight into its difficulties which I think none of my teachers
shared. . . . The whole thing represents a point of view
xxiii
I should entirely repudiate, and its complete failure with the
public gives me great satisfaction.8
And in his notes on 'The Devil', published in the
same year, he observed that it:
represents the breaking point of my earlier philosophical
beliefs. It is still realism, sharpened and hardened: The
doctrine of God is not thought out: the general position is
one of transcendence, and the coarseness and clumsiness of
the work reflects the influences of the environment in which
'Prayer' was written. The flagrant superficiality of it, I think,
drove me back upon my real convictions, and led to a year of
negative criticism (1916) and the building-up of a new
dialectical idealism in 1917.9
This confirms that Collingwood understood his
own thought at this point to be taking a new turn.
But there was still something missing: he had identified his target but not yet fully worked out and
articulated his alternative philosophical approach.
In 1917 the 'building up of a new dialectical
idealism' took the form of a full-length unpublished
book entitled Truth and Contradiction. As only the
second chapter survived, commentary on the whole
book is impossible.10 However, in this chapter
he analysed the strengths and weaknesses of the
8 Collingwood had bound the proofs of Religion and
Philosophy together with 'The Devil' and wrote these comments on the end paper in about 1918.The volume is in the
possession of Teresa Smith.
9 Ibid.
10Although Collingwood stated in his Autobiography(99)
that he had destroyed the manuscript of Truth and
Contradiction, nonetheless Chapter 2survived.
xxiv
coherence theory of truth and rejected the associated
notion of degrees of truth and reality. In this
endeavour we can see the truth of his later comment
that he was building up a new dialectical idealism:
but at this stage had still not yet achieved it; Truth
and Contradiction was his first serious attempt, but
he clearly was not happy with it. In the early 1920s
he wrote a 'Sketch of a Logic of Becoming', 'Notes
on Hegel's Logic', a draft of opening chapters of a
'Prolegomena to Logic' and Libellus deGeneratione,
all devoted to working out a dialectical logic of
becoming--but he was still not yet satisfied by any
of them. And so Collingwood found himself in
possession of a serviceable philosophical method
which (although he employed it in his lectures and
in Speculum Mentis) lacked proper philosophical
justification. It took him another ten years to work
out the answer to his own satisfaction through
lengthy and detailed considerations of the nature of
philosophy and the distinctive character of philosophical concepts in a variety of contexts, most especially in philosophy of history and moral philosophy.
Given Collingwood's constant insistence that
philosophy has to give an account of its own presuppositions, he was never going to be ultimately
satisfied with a method justified solely on pragmatic
grounds. However, he was obviously confident that
he would clear the matter up eventually, and by
1923 he was sufficiently confident in the idea of a
scale of forms (which was, with the directly related
logic of the overlap of classes, the central theme of
xxv
the Essay) to use both the phrase and the arrangement. The relation between art, religion, science,
history, and philosophy is displayed, then, in
Speculum Mentis as constituting a scale of forms of
experience in which each term in the scale renders
explicit what for the previous term was only
implicit. Although the term does not appear there,
Speculum Mentis is arranged dialectically as an
overlapping scale of forms. The forms of experience are articulated phenomenologically, with each
achieving more adequately what its predecessor
was striving (yet failing) to achieve.
Collingwood worked out the idea of an overlapping scale of forms in conjunction with his lectures
on moral philosophy, which he had delivered from
1921 and which he rewrote regularly. The courses
of lectures from 1921, 1923 (amended in 1926),
1929, 1932, and 1933 clearly show the evolution of
his thought concerning the scale of forms. The
earliest lectures post-date the dialectical turn but
precede the formulation of scale of forms analysis;
by 1923 however Collingwood had made the
decisive shift. In Part II of that year's lectures on
moral philosophy he for the first time offered an
account of philosophical method in which he
explicitly introduces the idea of a scale of forms
and briefly outlines its main features. He attributed
the idea to Aristotle, and cited the analysis in
De Anima of the different forms of the soul
differing in function and capacity as an instance.
These lectures were written in September of 1923,
xxvi
as Speculum Mentis was being prepared for the
press. His discussion of the idea in the lectures was
prompted by the approach taken in the book and
this marked the beginning of his working out of
the logic of a scale of forms. In Speculum Mentis,
Collingwood
had
developed
the
distinction
between implicit and explicit features of experience and philosophy as experience raised to selfconsciousness, rendering explicit the principles
implicitly informing experience, and showing how
each form gives rise to its successor dialectically as
a scale of forms. However, although under the
influence of Croce and Gentile he had moved
towards a dialectical manner of thinking and
presentation, Collingwood had not yet developed a
fully philosophically adequate account of dialectic.
In the conclusion to the section on the scale of
forms in the 1923 lectures Collingwood stated that:
Our series is to be a series of the forms of action; and action
is the opposite of passivity. Hence at the bottom of the scale
we ought to find pure passivity and at the top, pure activity.
Every stage in the scale ought to be more active than the one
below it and more passive than the one above it; and the
dialectical process leading from one to the next must be based
on the lower stage's incomplete self-sufficiency, its dependence on a principle which it does not itself include or possess.
For this means an incomplete freedom and therefore an
incompleteactivity.11
11'Action': lectures on moral philosophy, 1923,42. This
version of the conclusion, which was an amended version of
the original, probably dates from 1926. The references to De
Anima are to be found at p. 41.
This indicates that the scale of forms wasexplicitly
identified by Collingwood as a series of terms
in dialectical relationship. A key feature of a
dialectical relationship is the distinction between
implicit and explicit, with later terms making
implicit what remains only implicit in earlier
terms. In Speculum Mentis he wrote that:
xxvii
I may perhaps be permitted here to refer to a book called

Religion and Philosophy which I published in 1916, and in
which I tried to give a general account of the nature of the
religious consciousness, tested and illustrated by detailed
analyses of the central doctrines of Christianity. With much
of what that book contains I am still in agreement; but there
are certain principles which I then overlooked or denied, in
the light of which many of its faults can be corrected. The
chief of these principles is the distinction between implicit
and explicit. I contended throughout that religion, theology,
and philosophy were identical, and this I should now not so
much withdraw as qualify by pointing out that the 'empirical' (i.e.real but unexplained) difference between them is that
theology makes explicit what in religion as such is always
implicit, and so with philosophy and theology. This error led
me into a too intellectualistic or abstract attitude towards
religion, of which many critics rightly accused me. (SM 108n)
Progress on working out the dialectic of implicit
and explicit and developing a satisfactory conception of the scale of forms accelerated from 1927-9
onwards, in his writing on moral philosophy, politics, and the philosophy of history. This required
consideration of the nature and distinctive character of philosophical concepts. In his essays on 'The
Idea of a Philosophy of Something' (1927) and
xxviii
EDITORS'INTRODUCTION
'Outlines of a Philosophy of History' (1928) he
argued that there can be a philosophy of something
if (and only if) that something is a universal and
necessary form of experience;this viewwas repeated
in his pamphlet on The Philosophy of History
(1930). In these essays and in his 1929 lectures on
moral philosophy he referred to the concepts
distinctive of philosophy as transcendentals:
A philosophical concept is universal in the sense that it arises
necessarily whenever anybody thinks about a subject . . . the
subject itself must be a philosophical, or universal, concept;
and that can only mean a concept applicable to everything
that exists. It is a familiar idea in philosophy that there are
such concepts; in scholastic terminology they are called transcendentals, and you will find, in Spinoza for instance, that
ens, res, and unum are given as examples of transcendentals . . . The view which I am putting forward, then, is that
the concepts which compose the body of philosophy are
transcendentals.12
In the 1929 lectures Collingwood wrote that
'philosophy deals with conceptions of a particular
kind, namely those that in traditionalphilosophical
language are called transcendentals'.13 In these
papers and lectures, up to and including the
1932 lectures, Collingwood was working out the
themes of the Essay through an exploration of
the differentiaeof philosophical thinking, the
distinctive nature of philosophical concepts versus
non-philosophical or class concepts, and the
12 'The Idea of A Philosophy of Something', in IH 2nd
edn., 351--2.
I3Lectures on Moral Philosophy, 1929, 6.
xxix
implications of conceptual overlap for philosophical
analysis. However, the detailed logic of the overlap
of classes had not yet been fully developed and the
methodological explorations as a whole had not yet
been translated into the vocabulary of An Essay
on Philosophical Method. In the Essay Collingwood
finally demonstrated to his own satisfaction how a
scale of forms, a dialectical progression, was
possible. This demonstration
hinged on the
distinction between empirical or non-philosophical
concepts
as class concepts
and philosophical
concepts which, considered in their relations,
displayed identity and difference, fusion of opposition and distinction, and fusion of degree and kind.
Thus in a philosophical scale of forms the higher
terms make explicit what is merely implicit in the
lower.
The starting point for Collingwood's reflection on
method is Socratic. In philosophy we come 'to know
better something which in some sense we knew
already' (EPM 11). This principle is reasserted
throughout the book, and he also remarks that
'every school of philosophical thought has accepted
this principle' (EPM 161). There was thus nothing
distinctive (and Collingwood did not claim that
there was anything distinctive) about the mere
claim 'that philosophy brings us to know in a
different way things which we already knew in
some way' (EPM 161). Indeed, Susan Stebbing, in
the article Collingwood subjects to critical scrutiny
in Chapter VII, wrote that 'in using the method of
xxx
metaphysical analysis we are not using a method of
discovering reasons; we are using a method of
discovering what it is precisely which we already
in some sense knew.'14 Collingwood's originality
lies, then, in his systematic elucidation of an account
of philosophical method in which this claim acts as
a clue to the nature of philosophical concepts.
Philosophical concepts overlap in their instances and
out of the basic principle that philosophy renders
explicit what is otherwise implicit, Collingwood is
able to demonstrate the logic of the scale of forms.
A further merit of Collingwood's methodological
approach, according to Michael Beaney, is that it
avoids the so-called 'paradox of analysis', a problem which he identified several years before the
phrase was coined. The paradox is that either the
analysandum is the same in meaning as the analysans
or it is different. In the first case the analysis is
true but trivial; in the second it is interesting and
informative but false. From this it would seem to
follow that an analysis cannot be both correct and
informative. Collingwood's solution lay in his
conception of the scale of forms of progressively
more adequate and comprehensive knowledge.15
14 L. S. Stebbing, 'The
Method of Analysis in
Metaphysics', 93. This is the article discussed in Chapter
VII; see also, for example, C. D. Broad's Introduction to his
Scientific Thought, London, Kegan Paul,1923.
15 For extended discussion of Collingwood's work in relation to the emerging analytical school see M. Beaney,
'Collingwood's Critique of Analytic Philosophy'.
xxxi
Collingwood's achievement lay therefore in his
attempt to think through clearly the requirements
of a scale of forms which did critical justice both
to his employment of it and to the philosophical
work of his forebears. It was the culmination of an
engagement with Hegel, Plato, Bradley, Croce, and
Gentile on the nature of a dialectical scale and on
the nature of the philosophical concept. To take
merely one instance, Collingwood did not mention
Croce in the Essay, but his presence can nonetheless be felt because one of his concerns was to take
account of Croce's criticism of Hegel's notion of
dialectic.16 For Croce, philosophical concepts
which are related by opposition exhibit dialectical
relations; philosophical concepts related only by
distinction, however, cannot enter into dialectical
relations. Collingwood's view, however, is that this
distinction (by which Croce rids himself of much
of Hegel's dialectic) ends up by throwing away the
possibility of philosophy itself. In his view, because
philosophical concepts are related by both opposition and distinction, and because they are both
universal and categorical, they are related dialectically and hence arrange themselves as a scale of
forms. Collingwood's conception of dialectic is
thus a modification of both Croce's and Hegel's.
In the Essay Collingwood reached his goal with
a formulation of method which allowed him to
16 Collingwood identified his unnamed interlocutors in his
letter to Ryle of 9 May 1935.
xxxii
accept the idea of a dialectical scale of degrees
of knowledge. Through this he was enabled to
reappraise the work of philosophers (including
Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz, Locke, Kant, and Hegel)
whom he explicitly cited as following this method.
In particular after
completing the Essay
directed his method onto Bradley's philosophy,
and was able to admit Bradley's doctrine of degrees
of truth and reality as valid--at least when understood as constituting a scale of forms. This he did
in the essay on Bradley published below, and the
results were also made public in his lecture on the
'Nature of Metaphysical Study'.17
In Collingwood's writings from the early 1920s
onwards we can trace both the use of scale of forms
analysis and its progressive developing theoretical
justification. These were only properly brought
into mutual balance in the writing of the Essay
which was born out of reflection on the scale of
forms as previously employed in his philosophical
work. Hence we can largely agree with Louis
Mink's claim that the Essay is 'throughout, an
ex post facto justification of the dialectical system
of Speculum Mentis' .l8 The reservation lies in
recognition of the fact that in the Essay Collingwood
was not trying to produce a philosophical system or
to justify the system developed in Speculum Mentis;
he
17 The second lecture contains a distillation of the argument

developed in Collingwood's essay on Bradley's Appearance and
Reality and is published in the revised edition of EM.
18 Mink, Mind, History and Dialectic, 73.
xxxiii
he was seeking to elucidate the logic of philosophical thought through an analysis and explorationof
the nature of philosophical concepts.
This returns us to the point in November 1932
when Collingwood, following his rewriting of his
lectures on moral philosophy in the summer of that
year, finally embarked on the work which was the
culmination of many years of effort, arising both
out of substantive philosophizing and also out of
determined but elusive efforts to articulate the logic
of philosophical method. But it is also important
to recognize that, although the foregoing constitutes a very important and distinctive part of the
Essay, there were other important sources as well.
After all, Collingwood stated that he was 'welding
together' the many thoughts about these questions
that had been occupying him for many years. One of
these sources was previous work in aesthetics which
was distilled into the final chapter concerning
'Philosophy as a Branch of Literature'. Collingwood
had developed his views on aesthetics in Speculum
Mentis and Outlines of a Philosophy of Art (1925),
and published papers on 'The Place of Art in
Education' (1926), Aesthetic' (1927), and 'Form
and Content in Art' (1929) together with a cluster
of substantial reviews in the late 1920s and early
1930s.
For our present purposes, however, perhaps the
other most important source is the series of lectures
on the ontological argument written in late 1919.
Collingwood first lectured on the ontologicalproof
xxxiv
in 1920 and again in 1921 and 1922. The lectures
were extensive (36,000 words) and consisted (aswas
his wont) of a theoretical and an historical part.
Chapter VI, 'Philosophy as Categorical Thinking',
can be seen as a distillation of these lectures.19
Collingwood also discussed the ontological proof
in Religion and Philosophy and Speculum Mentis,
and a few years later returned to it in An Essay on
Metaphysics. As an indication of Collingwood's
approach to the ontological argument, consider
these passages from the lectures:
[T]aken by itself, in abstraction from any context or rather
content of positive theological and philosophical conceptions, the ontological proof [is] purely formal and empty.
The trouble with it, taken thus in abstraction, is not (as some
critics have said) that it proves the existence of an Absolute
but not of God still less of the Christian God. The trouble is,
rather, that it does not prove anything positive at all. It is the
mere skeleton or framework of proof, without any determination towards proving this rather than that. It shows that
reality exists as we conceive it: but it does not in itself determine how we shall conceive reality: that is to say it is a pure
form which does not dictate its own content. In its special
religious bearing, it is of value in insisting that religion is
conception, i.e. is not mere imagination, but claims truth: but
it does not tell us whether one particular religion is truer than
another. Similarly in its philosophical bearing it does not
advance any special theory of the nature of reality. Now this
purely formal character of the ontological proof must be
reconciled with one very conspicuous fact: namely that all its
19 See, e.g., EPM 124-7. Inspection of pages 1, 22, 28, 35,
41-2, 49 of the Lectures on the Ontological Proof of the
Existence of God will confirm this.
xxxv
supporters have emphatically asserted that it could only
apply to one conception, not to any and every conception. It
is the first thing that strikes one on studying the literature,
that Anselm, Descartes and his followers, Hegel, and the rest
all insist that there is only one idea which is affected by the
proof, an idea which they variously define as id quo majus
cogitari nequit, ens realissimum, the one substance, the
Absolute Conception, or God. All their critics, on the other
hand, from Gaunilo to Kant, get at cross-purposes with them
by trying to apply it to other ideas--ideas either of things
perfect in their kind, not absolutely perfect, or else of
ordinary objects of experience.20
In a related passagewhichmovestowardsthe argument in the Essay he restates the same point by
arguing that:
Anselm's ontological argument, taken in abstraction from any
specific metaphysical or religious doctrine, is empty of all
determinate content: it does indeed prove the existence of a
reality of some kind, but it is only religion, or metaphysics
in so far as metaphysics means the logical development of
religion, that it proves the existence of the God of Christian
belief. Except to a mind steeped in Christianity, or at any rate
in a theistic system of thought, the ontological argument has
no definitelytheistic bearing at all: the reality whose existence
it proves may be an Absolute but it is not God.21
In relationto the positionmaintained in the Essay,
Collingwood's summary of the significance of the
argument is important.He suggeststhat 'the ontological proof is really no less than the conviction
that thinking is worth while; a conviction without
which thought would never have arrived at any
20 Lectures on the Ontological Proof, 22.
2
I Ibid. 44.
xxxvi
results at all'.22 In other words, we have to believe
that our thought is valid, that is, that valid reasoning exists. We cannot think unless we presuppose
that we are thinking truly about a real object and
this real object--whatever else it might be-includes our own thought. Further, thought is criteriological, that is, it judges acts of thinking
according to standards which in turn are selfreflexively applied to itself. Philosophy is the study
of thinking, and thinking is always implicitly
criteriological, that is, governed by criteria by which
the success or failure of each piece of thinking is
judged. Philosophy is self-referential; it is an
instance of its subject matter and therefore in its
own performance exemplifies the principles and
criteria of the performance it takes as its starting
point, and appeals in judgement to the same criteria. As he expressed it in The Principles of Art, 'in
order to study the nature of thinking it is necessary
to ascertain both what persons who think are actually doing and also whether what they are doing is
a success or a failure':23 the philosopher is therefore
obliged to judge his or her own performance as a
thinker. Philosophy, then, is criteriological in two
respects: it judges the success or failure of the
performance it philosophizes about and at the same
time judges its own success or failure as a piece of
philosophical thinking, using in the latter instance
22Lectures on the Ontological Proof, 21.
23PA 171n; see also EM 107 and 109.
xxxvii
criteria applying both to itself and to its object.
This takes the form of a simple argument: philosophical thought concerns standards; because it is
thinking about thinking it is self-reflexive; therefore it necessarily concerns its own standards and
has to exemplify and live up to them. This appears
to be the point of the ontological argument as
Collingwood uses it in the Essay; it was also one of
Gilbert Ryle's key points of disagreement.
Reception of the Essay
Most of the reviews of An Essay on Philosophical
Method were positive, as was the reception by
Collingwood's friends. In reviewing it for the
Oxford Magazine, T M. Knox described it as
'a philosophical classic'; the review in Mind by
F. C. S. Schiller was typically quirky but appreciative; that in Philosophy by L. J. Russell was broadly
sympathetic--and
the editor of Philosophy,
Sydney Hooper, sent Collingwood a letter expressing his
appreciation of the book.
Charles
Hartshorne
reviewed
it favourably
in The
International Journal of Ethics and it was also
reviewed in many other places.24 Collingwood
also received letters from Samuel Alexander,
H. W. B. Joseph, and H. H. Joachim, all expressing
appreciation,
and
the book
also
sparked
24 For details see C. Dreisbach, R. G. Collingwood: A
Bibliographical Checklist.
xxxviii
correspondence with his old mentor J. A. Smith.
Despite this acclaim, the essay had its critics and
Ryle was not the only one; and it is interesting to
note that Ryle was not the only one to raise concerns
about the use of the ontological argument in the
Essay. Father M. C. D'Arcy also did so, although his
comments tended in the opposite direction. Whereas
Ryle bemoaned what he saw as logical backsliding
with Collingwood claiming too much for the
constructive powers of philosophy, D'Arcy was
more worried that perhaps it established too little.
He noted Collingwood's 'remarkable statement that
"with Hegel's rejection of subjective idealism, the
Ontological Proof took its place once more among
the accepted principles of modern philosophy, and
it has never again been seriously criticized", and went
on to comment that 'I like this remark especially as
some time ago I was told by two Cambridge philosophers that the greatest achievement of their school
consisted in the final refutation of this very
argument! I wonder, too, whether St Anselm would
have been satisfied with the kind of object
Mr Collingwood wishes to prove.'25 Oddly enough,
Collingwood's modified defence of the ontological
argument did not worry most reviewers: it did not
figure in any way in the reviews in Mind, Philosophy
or The International Journal of Ethics.26
25M. C. D'Arcy, review of EPM. Collingwood had previously written a favourable review of D'Arcy's book The
Nature of Belief.
26By F. C. S. Schiller, L. J. Russell, and C. Hartshorne
respectively.
xxxix
Some reviewers, whether friendly or hostile, took
issue with Collingwood's use of language. So, for
example, D'Arcy regarded the Essay as an interesting and important book whilst C. J. Ducasse, for
one, took the opposite view and considered it to be
fundamentally mistaken and misconceived;27 but
both agreed that Collingwood's language was
imprecise, sometimes vague, and insufficiently
analytical. This criticism was later echoed by
A. J. Ayer in his Philosophy in the Twentieth
Century where he remarked that 'An Essay on
Philosophical Method is a contribution to belleslettres rather than philosophy. The
style is
uniformly elegant, the matter mostly obscure.'28
General reviews aside, the two most substantial,
critical and detailed contemporary responses to the
Essay were the pieces by Ryle29 in 1935 and
Ducasse in 1936. Ryle's article is considered below
in the context of the correspondence. Ducasse
27 'Mr. Collingwood on philosophical method'. In 1931
Collingwood had given a favourable but critical review of
Ducasse's The Philosophy of Art. It is ironic, in the light of
Ducasse's criticisms of his use of language, that Collingwood
should praise Ducasse for adhering to his determination to
avoid 'the vagueness and logical looseness which have been
the bane of philosophy'.
28 Ayer, Philosophy in the Twentieth Century, 193. It is
interesting to note that R. W. Chapman at the Clarendon
Press remarked in a brief note to W. D. Ross that 'I am no
judge of its probable soundness or merit as philosophy, but
it looks as if it might satisfy the condition of good literature.'
Letter to Ross, 10 March 1933, Clarendon Press archives.
29 G. Ryle, 'Mr. Collingwood and the Ontological Argument'.
xl
wrote a substantial critical essay on Collingwood's
views of philosophical method. He correctly identified that Collingwood was attempting to elucidate
a method for philosophy grounded in the nature of
philosophical concepts. For Collingwood, whereas
in scientific concepts the species of a genus are
mutually exclusive, in philosophy they overlap, and
the species of a philosophical genus constitute a
scale of forms combining differences of degree with
differences in kind. Ducasse's main line of attack
was to address head-on what it means to be a species
of a genus. He argued that for Collingwood to
establish his claim that philosophical concepts are
distinguished from scientific concepts by virtue of
the fact that species of the genus overlap in philosophy, he would have to show that the relevant
species are coordinate species of the genus: 'for the
overlapping of species of a genus that are not
coordinate is a ubiquitous fact, in no way distinctive
of philosophical concepts'.30 Again, 'coordinateness
of overlapping species of a genus is the only
thing that would have been distinctive, or that was
in any need of demonstration, and without it
Mr Collingwood's examples are only a waste of
time.'31 He suggested that although Collingwood
did not explicitly state that they are coordinate
species, he tacitly claimed this to be so.32 However,
30 C. J. Ducasse, 'Mr. Collingwood on philosophical
method', 98.
3
IIbid. 99.
32 EPM, 35. Elsewhere, however, Collingwood seems
to expressly deny that they are coordinate species, see,
he then accused Collingwood of never even
attempting to show that the species that he mentions
are coordinate and then tried to impale him on the
horns of a logical dilemma by stating firmly 'that
they are not coordinate automatically follows from
the fact that they overlap. But if Mr Collingwood
did not claim them to be coordinate, their overlapping, as already pointed out, could not then be
claimed to be something distinctive of philosophical concepts.'33 In other words, Ducasse willingly
grants conceptual overlap, but denies its significance
unless Collingwood were clearly arguing that overlap were overlap of coordinate species--and this he
maintained he had not and could not do. His
argument is reminiscent of that employed by Ryle.34
For Collingwood, the central claim is that philosophical concepts escape the rules of classification
exhibited by empirical or class concepts.
response, then, he would presumably have refused
to accept the horns of the dilemma on which
Ducasse sought to impale him. For Ducasse,
Collingwood evades the issue by refusing (in his
imprecision) to see the dilemma; for Collingwood,
xli
In
e.g., 'Method and Metaphysics', below, note 4. The point,

presumably,
is that Collingwood
denies what
Ducasse
affirms, that is, that the standard logic of classes is applicable to philosophical concepts. Given this, one can see that the
two philosophers were bound to talk straight past each other.
33 Ducasse., op. cit., 99.
34 In a footnote Ducasse explicitly states his agreement with
Ryle's criticisms of the categorical nature of philosophical
propositions.
xlii
Ducasse (and those like Ryle who share his view)
miss the point by falsely assuming that all concepts
are empirical classes. As he expressed it in the Essay:
[W]hen a concept has a dual significance, philosophical and
non-philosophical, in its non-philosophical phase it qualifies
a limited part of reality, whereas in its philosophical it leaks or
escapes out of these limits and invades the neighbouring
regions, tending at last to colour our thought of reality as a
whole. As a non-philosophical concept it observes the rules
of classification, its instances forming a class separate from
other classes; as a philosophical concept it breaks these rules,
and the class of its instances overlaps those of its co-ordinate
species. (EPM 35)
Philosophy, then, ought to recognize these distinguishing features of philosophical concepts (or of the
philosophical phase of concepts). Collingwood was
well aware that certain approaches to philosophy,
which he had earlier dubbed 'scientific philosophy'35
and now referred to as analytical philosophy, agreed
in maintaining that all concepts (philosophical
concepts included) are class concepts where the
phrase 'class concept' refers to the concepts typical
of empirical science. This reduction is of course
exactly what Collingwood was trying to escape:
Where the generic concept is non-philosophical, as here, the
affirmation of one specific form involves the indiscriminate
denial of all the rest, for their structure is that of a group of
co-ordinate classes where each excludes each and therefore
any one excludes all the rest, none more than another. But
35 See SM, 49-50.
xliii
where the generic concept is philosophical, specified in a
scale of forms of which the judgement is intended to affirm
the highest (which it always is, because every one necessarily
conceives the highest specific form known to him as the true
form of the generic concept, and so affirms that), its denial
of all the inferior forms is summarized in one denial, namely
that of the proximate form; since each summarizes the whole
scale up to that point, and the denial of that involves the
denial of all that it summarizes. (EPM 107-8)
This is a claim about the distinctiveness of philosophy, philosophical reasoning, and philosophical
concepts, expressing the view that they do not
obey the laws of formal classificatory logic. It
would therefore follow that simply invoking those
laws
against
Collingwood
could
not
persuaded him, as it is their very status and
character that is the point at issue. But Ducasse
thought that by the looseness of his language at
critical points in his argument Collingwood made
matters easy for himself. Collingwood was himself
well aware that such a charge might be brought
against his manner of philosophizing by members
of the analytical school who adopted a technical,
scientific view of the nature of language. In
Speculum Mentis Collingwood had remarked that
'to suppose that one word, in whatever context it
appears, ought to mean one thing and no more,
argues not an exceptionally high standard of
logical accuracy but an exceptional ignorance as to
the nature of language' (SM 11). This remark
prompted Stebbing in reviewing the book to make
have
xliv
the riposte that 'presumably, to expect that such
important words as true, identical, real should have
a clear and unambiguous meaning, is to be a "verbal
pedant" who uses "jargon" that is neither English
nor "plain". The critic is thus given to understand
at the outset that he must not expect precision of
statement whether or not there be clearness of
thought.' Collingwood's argument in the final
chapter of the Essay that philosophy should be
written in literary rather than technical scientific
language was therefore no new departure: but
Collingwood was no nearer persuading Ducasse of
its merits than he had earlier persuaded Stebbing.
Indeed the claim provoked a comparable outburst
from Ducasse:
Many others of Mr Collingwood's contentions testify no less
eloquently than those already considered how unfailingly
fatal in philosophical investigations is a method which, in no
matter what eulogistic terms described, essentially consists
of a systematic refusal to be precise whenever precision
would require of the reader some effort of attention, and
would thus interfere with his literary enjoyment of what
he reads.36
Ducasse, it is fair to say, was not convinced by the
Essay. Presumably Collingwood was aware of his
article, but there is no evidence that he considered
its criticisms either in unpublished manuscripts,
private correspondence, or in print. Ducasse later
36 L. S. Stebbing,
review of Speculum
Ducasse, op. cit., 104.
Mentis, 566.
xlv
reviewed An Essay on Metaphysics, which he much
preferred to the earlier work; indeed, he seemed to
prefer it in direct proportion to the extent to which,
in his view, it ignored or controverted the principles and precepts of its predecessor.37
The Essay and after
Having looked at some of the reviews and critical
responses to the An Essay on Philosophical Method
we can now examine Collingwood's own use of his
fresh-minted method and its relation to his later
thought. After publication Collingwood employed
the notion of the scale of forms and its associated
concepts extensively. For instance, it is to be found
in the manuscripts such as 'Notes Towards a
Metaphysic', and in lectures such as 'Method
and Metaphysics'. It is employed historically in
both The Idea of Nature (largely written in 1934
and revised in 1937) and The Idea of History
(mostly written early in 1936). It is present in The
Principles of Art and forms the backbone of
The New Leviathan.
In the Essay Collingwood does not distinguish
or systematically explore all of the possible
applications of the scale of forms. For example, in
his work we find consciousness, forms of experience, concepts, and historical development all
variously arranged as scales of forms. But there is
37Ducasse, review of EM.
xlvi
a question: does scale of forms analysis require
modification if applied to these different objects?
The Essay is largely silent on this, perhaps because
it makes the implicit assumption that there are no
essential differences worth remarking. Although it
could be argued that use of the method in different contexts requires modification,38 it should be
noted that neither in the Essay nor later did
Collingwood indicate that he saw any need for
fundamental modification to the argument of the
Essay. In the Essay itself he has no qualms with
employing the scale of forms historically;39 he
might be wrong to be so sanguine, but equally,
perhaps we should accept that the work is an essay
not a treatise, and that Collingwood limited his
concerns accordingly.
The Principles of Art (1938) was explicit in its
references to the Essay and quietly unobtrusive in
its employment of the scale of forms and the
concept of overlap. One important passage is
discussed below; another is where Collingwood
refers to the overlap between art and craft and
urges his readers to avoid the fallacy of precarious
38 In his introduction to the revised edition of EM, Rex
Martin points out that a historical use of the scale of forms
requires modification as its particular forms might not be
co-present. In a historical process, for example, it may be that
a later phase has no point of temporal coincidence with an earlier phase and hence the two cannot overlap in the way in
which they can and do in a purely conceptual scale of forms
(EM xxxviii--xlv).
3
9 e.g., see EPM 190--3.
xlvii
margins (PA 22n). This is an important point and
one often missed by hostile critics who frequently
take Collingwood to be claiming that what is craft
is ipso facto not art and vice versa.
In 'What Civilization Means', written in 1939-40,
the method is employed in an important and
explicit rebuttal of historical relativism. In this
essay Collingwood analysed the ideals of civilized
conduct and demonstrated that their interrelations
are those of forms in a scale of forms. There cannot
be, therefore, a single unilinear scale in which
civilizations differ only in degree: civilizations
differ both in degree and in kind.40
It is worth noting that, generally, Collingwood
did not dwell on the issue of method, preferring
instead to let the dialectic emerge from the flow of
the argument itself. This also follows his general
approach to system building: he was systematic, but
did not seek to produce a complete system unified
in structure and terminology. There remains a
curiosity, however, in the fact that the scale of forms
was not obviously employed (and was certainly not
mentioned) in An Essay on Metaphysics, where,
given its immediate predecessors and successors
which used or recommended the method, together
with its status as a companion volume to the Essay
on Method, one would expect it to have been. We
examine this curiosity below.
40 For an analysis of this piece (reprinted in the second
edition of NL), in relation to the Essay, see J. Connelly,
Metaphysics, Method and Politics, ch. 6.
xlviii
Collingwood's last published book during his lifetime was TheNew Leviathan. This drew extensively
on themes emerging directly out of the lectures on
moral philosophy, especially his most recent series
'Goodness, Rightness, Utility', written at the turn of
the year 1939-40; it incorporates the analysis to be
found in manuscripts such as 'What Civilization
Means' (1939-40) and draws on the account of mind
and consciousness developed in The Principles of
Art. It is explicitly arranged as a scale of forms.
However, it does make an apparent (but unsignalled)
modification to the doctrine by introducing 'the law
of primitive survivals'. This states that 'when A is
modified into B there survives in any example of B,
side by side with the function B which is the modified form of A, an element of A in its primitive or
unmodified state' (NL 9.51).41
Philosophical Method and Cosmology
Before embarking on an account of the previously
unpublished manuscripts reprinted below, it is
41 David Boucher, The Social and Political Thought of
R. G. Collingwood, 96, argues that the presence of an unmodified residue means there can be no complete overlap of forms
on a scale. It could be argued in reply that the law of primitive survivals is found in historical, but not in purely conceptual scales of forms; however, this would be to concede the
unity of scale of forms analysis. A different reply would be to
argue that the law is implicit in the Essay anyway. For example, Collingwood states that the higher of two adjacent forms
'fails to include the lower in its entirety because there is a
instructive to look at the cosmological notes that
Collingwood made immediately after composing
the Essay. According to Knox, after completing the
Essay, Collingwood remarked that having 'propounded a theory of philosophical method, he was
now proceeding to apply it to a problem which had
never been solved, namely, to the philosophy of
nature'.42 To this end he began a series of notebooks
on cosmology--'Notes Towards a Metaphysic'.
There were five notebooks in all, covering some
522 pages (about 130,000 words). Much of this
work contributed to his lectures on 'Nature and
Mind' (and subsequently to The Idea of Nature).
One substantial outcome was the sketch of a cosmology which formed the originalconclusion (1934)
to the lectures which comprise the bulk of The Idea
of Nature.43 In the opening remarks of the notebooks, begun in September 1933, Collingwood
xlix
negative aspect in the lower which is rejected by the higher:

the lower, in addition to asserting its own content, denies that
the generic essence contains anything more, and this denial
constitutes its falsehood' (EPM 90). It is a moot point.
42 T M. Knox, Prefatory Note to The Idea of Nature, v.
43 The conclusions to the lectures on nature and mind are
reprinted in The Principles of History. The 1935 conclusion
is similar to the conclusion published in The Idea of Nature
in that it simply marks the transition from the idea of nature
to the idea of history. The 1934conclusion, by contrast, is a
succinctly stated philosophical cosmology tracing the emergence and evolution of matter, life, mind, and God. For
details of these manuscripts, see D. Boucher, 'The Principles
of History and the Cosmology Conclusion to The Idea
of Nature', and 'The Significance of R. G. Collingwood's
Principles of History'.
1
made the relationship between his current enterprise and his newly published views on philosophical method clear, in terms which were later echoed
in 'Method and Metaphysics':
The main principle of my method is the Scale of Forms-in this problem we have a genus (I suppose its name is
Reality) divided into a scale of species Matter, Life, Mind.
According to the method, these should be kinds of reality
and also degrees of reality, the highest the most real: each
should be distinct from the next and also opposed to the
next--and Matter-Mind are just as truly 'nexts' as MatterLife & Life-Mind, Life here forming the 'twilight-term'
between them, and the whole triad being only a rough
preliminary triangulation for a much
more detailed
survey--each should sum up the whole scale to that point
and from its own point of view be identical with the genus,
so that, from the point of view of a lower term (e.g. Matter)
that term is the genus (Reality) and the higher terms (Life,
Mind) are simply nothing--the names of errors. Whereas
from the point of view of a higher term (e.g. Mind)
although that term is the genus (Mind = Reality) the same
term includes the lower terms (Matter, Life) and, instead of
denying these, asserts them as implicates of itself. It does
deny them in one sense, but only in the sense that it denies
their denials, viz. their claim to be the only or highest term
in the scale.
Now what about the nisus? i.e. what is the nature of the
force which drives us from a lower term to the next higher,
or if you like converts that into this? On this subject I have
said nothing in the Essay. It is what Spinoza would call an
immanent causality: something in the first term which
converts it into the second.44
44 'Notes Towards a Metaphysic', 1.
li
This statement goes beyond the Essay in its
assertion that reality constitutes a scale of forms:
this is the unifying theme of Collingwood's theoretical cosmology. But is Collingwood asserting
that reality in reconstitutes a scale of forms or that
reality, qua philosophical concept, necessarily
articulates itself as a scale of forms? The Essay
itself confined itself to the analysis of concepts and
remained agnostic on these wider issues.
'The Metaphysics of F. H. Bradley'
Over Christmas
1933 Collingwood wrote an
extended essay on Bradley with the title 'The
Metaphysics of F. H. Bradley: An Essay on
Appearance and Reality'. The core argument of this
essay also became a central part of the second of
his lectures on 'The
Nature of Metaphysical
Study', delivered in early 1934. Perhaps the essay
was itself delivered as a lecture in its own right;
certainly Collingwood's discussion of Bradley made
an appreciable impact on Donald MacKinnon, who
remarked that he 'had the advantage of hearing
three courses of lectures by that remarkable
philosopher (and indeed his Inaugural lecture as
Professor, not to mention two remarkable lectures
on Bradley's Appearance and Reality)' .45
The essay provides an account of Bradley's
central metaphysical doctrines, their origin in his
45 D. M. MacKinnon, Explorations in Theology, 29.
lii
rejection of the phenomenalism of Mansel and
Mill, and proceeds to make the claim that Bradley
was enunciating some of the central doctrines of
modern realism and was not the idealist he was
typically taken to be. From the point of view of
method the essay is notable because of its reinterpretation and reappropriation of the doctrine of
the degrees of truth and reality, something only
now possible for Collingwood because he had
cleared up the issue of philosophical method.
Whereas he had previously rejected the doctrine of
degrees of truth and reality, he was now able to
embrace them, suitably reinterpreted along the
lines of his conception of the scale of forms. In
Truth and
Contradiction (1917) Collingwood
submitted the theory of truth as coherence to
searching criticism, although he admitted that it
was probably the best theory available. His main
objection to the associated doctrine of degrees of
truth and reality was that truth could not be
arranged on a linear scale, a point repeated in
Speculum Mentis, where he states that 'the terms
of a dialectical series are not related to one another
in terms of degree, but by the assertion in each
term of something which in the previous term was
wrongly denied'
(SM
208). This
statement
anticipates the doctrine developed at length in
the Essay. Following the conceptual labours of
the Essay, however, he was now free to use the
notions of degrees of knowledge, truth or reality
unencumbered by lingering doubts concerning
their validity, principally because he had reconceptualized what is meant by the term 'degrees' in
philosophy. He made this clear in The Principles of
Art, where in discussing the imagination, he
remarked that 'Kant . . . approached the problem
along a new line. Instead of trying to conceive real
sensa and imaginary sensa as two coordinate species
of the same genus, the conception which, in spite of
the empiricists' attempt to revive it, had been
once for all refuted by the Cartesians, he conceived
the difference between them as a difference of
degree' (PA 187). The point is clarified in a footnote:
liii
Here and elsewhere I use this word in the traditional philosophical sense, where differences of degree are understood
as involving differences of kind; as in Locke's 'three degrees
of knowledge', where each 'degree' is at once a fuller
realization of the essence of knowledge than the one below
(more certain, less liable to error) and also a fresh kind of
knowledge. See Essay on Philosophical Method, pp. 54-5,
69-77. (PA 1871n)
This reading of 'degrees' became available only on
completion of the train of thought culminating in
the Essay. In his essay on Bradley Collingwood
made Bradley's position his own by projecting on
to him a reading derived from his new understanding of what 'degrees' in philosophy meant.
He boldly points out that:
Bradley is here using the conception of overlappingclasses.
A distinction has been made between appearance and reality;
Bradley accepts it, but points out that the things so distinguished overlap to a vast and unverifiable extent, whereas the
liv
subjectivist or phenomenalistphilosophershave assumed the
absence of such overlap. (MB 29)
Shortly after he suggests that Bradley, in putting
forward the notion of degrees of truth and reality:
is passing from the overlap of classes to the scale of forms,
without which further conception that of an overlap of
classes must remain incomplete and unintelligible. For his
degrees are not measurable degrees; they are variations in
which the variable is the same as the genericessence. And by
adopting this notion he is able to accept as his own the doctrines of the phenomenalismwhich he is criticising,while yet
criticising them and rejecting them as inadequateand to that
extent untrue. (MB 31)
Collingwood's essay on Bradley should be seen as
a re-engagement with, and a fresh endorsement of,
Bradley's philosophy in the light of his own
concerns and made possible by his work in philosophical method.46
Correspondence with Gilbert Ryle
The correspondence with Ryle illustrates, in the
course of a discussion centred on nature and value
of the ontological argument, Collingwood's understanding of philosophical concepts and his associated attempt to resist their
assimilation to
enumerative empirical classifications not subject to
overlap. For Collingwood philosophical concepts
46 For more on Collingwood'sunderstanding of Bradley,
see J. Connelly, 'Bradley, Collingwood and the "Other
Metaphysics"'.
Iv
are distinct from others and necessarily overlap;
this Ryle denied: the correspondence brings out
sharply some of the leading points at issue between
the two approaches to philosophy typified by each
man.
The correspondence took place in May and early
June 1935 and comprised a spirited and detailed
philosophical debate centred on three lengthy
letters, initiated by Collingwood's reaction to
Ryle's article in Mind concerning his rehabilitation
of the ontological argument, a rehabilitation which
Ryle considered
scandalous. The
discussion
rapidly went beyond the ontological proof per se
and became a symposium on the nature of philosophy, what could and could not be proved by
philosophical inquiry, the nature of philosophical
concepts, the nature of universals, and the distinction between an intensional and an extensional
understanding of concepts. The letters make
implicit reference to Russell's theory of classes and
Collingwood's contribution constitutes an attack
on the naturalism implicit in the new empiricist
movement. His letters thereby also serve to clarify
his disagreement with the presuppositions of
empiricism and the rising analytical school in
British philosophy. The exchange took place
shortly after Collingwood had been appointed to
the Waynflete Chair of Metaphysical Philosophy in
May 1935 and illustrated some of his developing
thinking on the role and nature of metaphysics in
the period between the earlier essay on Method
and the later Essay on Metaphysics.
Ivi
To set the scene for the debate, it is necessary to
give a flavour of Ryle's article, 'Mr Collingwood
and the Ontological Argument', published in Mind
in 1935. It did not purport to be a review of the Essay
as such (indeed the essay had already been reviewed
in the journal by the self-consciously iconoclastic
pragmatist F. C. S. Schiller). Ryle's focus was
entirely centred on Collingwood's understanding
of philosophical propositions as both universal
and categorical, and with his exhumation of the
ontological argument--something which he supposed logically dead and buried. In the article Ryle
classified Collingwood 'for what such labels are
worth, as an Idealist'.47 He began by frankly stating
that he intended to be merely destructive in that he
only
wanted
to show
the mistakes
which
Collingwood had made in propounding his claim
that philosophical propositions are categorical and
stand in a peculiarly close relation to what exists. He
claimed that if Collingwood were right about this
then constructive metaphysics was the proper business of philosophy and Hume and Kant were wrong
in so far as they maintained that a priori arguments
could not establish particular matters of fact.
For Ryle, Collingwood's claim that philosophical
propositions are categorical meant that they must
refer to something which exists, or contain or rest
on propositions which do so; and, he continued,
'this must mean, to use language which is not
47 G. Ryle, 'Mr. Collingwood and the Ontological
Argument', in G. Ryle, Collected Essays, vol. 2,101.
Ivii
Mr Collingwood's, that philosophical propositions
are or contain or rest on propositions embodying
either at least one logically proper name or else at
least one definite description which does in fact
describe something. In short, every philosophical
proposition is or contains or rests on a genuine
singular proposition', and he confessed that he
could not make head or tail of this. Indeed, he was
upset 'to find that apparently after all some judgements may be universal and so (I suppose) expressible in purely general terms and yet categorical in
the sense of referring to something actually existing. I fear that the principle of the overlap of classes
will be brought in to give us carte blanche to have it
both ways when it suits our convenience!'48
Ryle then observed that Collingwood's first
argument
for this
conclusion
was that the
Ontological Argument is valid, and is indeed
presupposed by all other philosophical arguments.
He notes Collingwood's recognition of the standard
objection to the argument, where he states that
'Anselm's argument that in conceiving a perfect
being we are conceiving a subject possessed of all
positive predicates, including that of existence, so
that to think of this is already to think of it as existing, is an argument open to objection on the logical
ground that existence is not a predicate; but the
substance of his thought survives all such objections'(EPM 125). Ryle was deeply puzzled by this
bland acceptance of what, to him, was a decisive
48Ibid. 105.
Iviii
objection, and still more puzzled (or perhaps
affronted) by Collingwood blithely sailing past the
objection with the high-handed comment that
nonetheless Anselm's argument survives all such
objections. This, maintains Ryle, is precisely the
point where recent logicians would dig their heels
in and 'say that the argument is an obvious fallacy
unless existence is a "predicate"; and that existence
is not a "predicate" '. And he then asks the question
of how a particular matter of fact can be deduced
from a priori or non-empirical premisses.49
Collingwood had in Ryle's view 'rather cavalierly'
dismissed Kant's refutation of the argument as a
result of false subjectivism and scepticism and then
compounded the felony by making the scandalous
assertion that 'with Hegel's rejection of subjective
idealism, the Ontological Proof took its place once
more among the accepted principles of modern
philosophy, and it has never again been seriously
criticised' (EPM 126).50 This bland assertion
moved Ryle to bewildered indignation:
To my mind this dictum almost merits tears. One of the
biggest advances in logic that have been made since Aristotle,
namely Hume's and Kant's discovery that particular matters
of fact cannot be the implicates of general propositions, and
so cannot be demonstrated from a priori premisses, is written off as a backsliding into an epistemological or psychological mistake, and all's to do again.51
49 G. Ryle, 'Mr.
Collingwood and the Ontological
Argument', in G. Ryle, Collected Essays, vol. 2, 106.
50 Ibid. 106.
5
I Ibid. 106.
Collingwood had thus (for Ryle) dismissed the
whole of what might broadly be called Russellian
logic; this dismissal he regarded as preposterous. But
at this point he went on to address Collingwood's
denial that the ontological argument made any
specific theological claims and quoted Collingwood's
conclusion that:
lix
What it does prove is that essence involves existence, not

always, but in one special case, the case of God in the metaphysical sense: the Deus sive natura of Spinoza, the Good of
Plato, the Being of Aristotle: the object of metaphysical
thought. But this means the object of philosophical thought
in general; for metaphysics, even if it is regarded as only
one among the philosophical sciences, is not unique in its
objective reference or in its logical structure; all philosophical
thought is of the same kind, and every philosophical science
partakes of the nature of metaphysics, which is not a separate
philosophical science but a special study of the existential
aspect of that same subject-matter whose aspect as truth
is studied by logic and its aspect as goodness by ethics.
Reflection on the history of the Ontological Proof thus offers
us a view of philosophy as a form of thought in which essence
and existence, however clearly distinguished, are conceived
as inseparable. On this view, unlike mathematics or empirical
science, philosophy stands committed to maintaining that its
subject-matter is no mere hypothesis, but something actually
existing. (EPM 127-8)
To which Ryle responded by suggesting that
'surely Russell's theory of descriptions and his
consequential analysis of existential propositions
as a species of general proposition has been before
the philosophical public long enough for this
1x
ontological fallacy to merit immunity from any
more exhumations.'52
At this point Ryle turned his attention to
Collingwood's claim concerning the normative selfreferentiality of propositions in logic. Collingwood
had argued that logicians 'enunciate principles of
logic in propositions which themselves exemplify
those principles. So their propositions exist. So the
essence of the principles of logic involves the existence of examples of them.'53 This argument Ryle
found 'so extraordinary' that (presumably to ensure
that his readers should believe the evidence of
their own eyes) he felt obliged to quote the relevant
passages
at length.
The
passage
concerned
Collingwood's claim that logic has thought for its
subject matter and does not give a merely descriptive account of it; further, Collingwood maintains
that neither is logic purely normative, because
a purely normative science would expound a norm or ideal of
what its subject matter ought to be, but would commit itself
to no assertion that this ideal was anywhere realized ... in
logic the subject matter is propositions, and the body of the
science consists of propositions about propositions . . . the
propositions of which logic consists must conform to the rules
which logic lays down, so that logic is actually about itself; not
about itself exclusively,but at least incidentally about itself. It
follows that logic cannot be in substance merely hypothetical . . . logic, by existing, . . . constitutes an actually existing
subject matter to itself. Thus . . . when we say 'all universal
propositions distribute their subject', we are not only discussing
52 G. Ryle, 'Mr. Collingwood and the Ontological Argument',
in G. Ryle, Collected Essays, vol. 2, 109.
5
3 Ibid. no.
1xi
universal propositions, we are also enunciating a universal
proposition; we are producing an actual instance of the thing
under discussion, and cannot discuss it without doing so.
Consequently no such discussion can be indifferent to the
existence of its own subject matter; in other words, the
propositions which constitute the body of logic cannot ever be
in substance hypothetical. A logician who lays it down that all
universal propositions are merely hypothetical is showing a
true insight into the nature of science, but he is undermining
the very possibility of logic; for his assertion cannot be true
consistently with the fact of his asserting it. Similarly with
inference. Logic not only discusses, it also contains reasoning;
and if a logician could believe that no valid reasoning anywhere existed, he would merely be disbelieving his own logical theory. For logic has to provide not only a theory of its
subject matter, but in the same breath, a theory of itself; it is
an essential part of its proper task that it should consider not
only how other kinds of thought proceed, and on what principles, but how and on what principles logic proceeds. If it had
only to consider other kinds of thought, it could afford to deal
with its subject matter in a way either merely normative or
merely descriptive; but towards itself it can only stand in an
attitude that is both at once. It is obliged to produce, as constituent parts of itself, actual instances of thought which realize its own ideal of what thought should be. Logic, therefore,
stands committed to the principle of the Ontological Proof. Its
subject matter, namely thought, affords an instance of something which cannot be conceived except as actual, something
whose essence involves existence. (EPM 129-31)
Ryle's exasperation is palpable in his expostulation
that 'I shall find it hard to condense within reasonable limits my objections to this argument'.54
His first point was that it had nothing to do with
54 Ibid. III.
1xii
the Ontological Argument, and his second that it
did not establish the general conclusion that the
propositions of logic are not hypothetical. He then
proceeded to gnaw at three 'subsidiary bones' he
had to pick with Collingwood.
Mr Collingwood is at pains to show that a logician who denies
the existence of any instances of logically regular thinking
must be wrong because he himself is producing an instance
of that which he denies to exist. Now this might, per accidens,
be so (though a man might, if he troubled, deny the
occurrence of genuine
singular propositions without
producing one, or argue against the occurrence of syllogisms
in Disamis by syllogisms in Baroco). But it has no bearing
on the point. For (general) hypothetical propositions do not
deny the existence of their subjects, they only do not affirm
or imply their existence. So a man who maintained that all
the propositions of logic are (general) hypotheticals would
not be denying the existence of anything. So his exposure as
himself a producer of propositions would no more disconcert
him than a lecturer on canine diseases would be disconcerted
by hearing the bark of a dog.55
This became one of the major themes of the correspondence.
The
second
bone
dealt
Collingwood's concern that if logic were purely
normative 'it would resemble the exact sciences: it
would in fact either be, or be closely related to
mathematics' (EPM 129). Ryle clearly did not
object to such a conclusion and suggested that
Collingwood had forgotten that 'this is precisely
what is desired for logic by many logicians, past
55 G. Ryle, 'Mr.
Collingwood and the Ontological
Argument', in G. Ryle, Collected Essays, vol. 2, 111-12.
with
and present'.56 The third and final bone was that,
in Ryle's view, it was not a fact peculiar to logical
propositions that they belong to the subject matter
which they discuss:
1xiii
The English grammarian writes grammatically about grammar; the educationist lectures instructively about lecturing
instructively; the signalling instructor may signal instructions about signalling to his pupils; Horace writes his Ars
Poetica in poetry. Have these anything to do with the
Ontological Argument? I suppose Mr Collingwood would
reply that it is accidental if the principles of grammar or
elocution or poetry are conveyed in vehicles which
themselves exemplify those principles, but it is necessary that
logicians' propositions should instantiate the principles
which they themselves propound. But even this seems to me
not to be so. For after all one can talk about singular
propositions in general propositions, negative propositions in
affirmative ones, relational in attributive and attributive in
relational propositions. One can reason about the syllogism
in non-syllogistic arguments and vice versa. But let us
suppose that sometimes logicians have to formulate logical
principles or rules in propositions which are instances of
them. Even so, the writer or reader might and usually would
attend to what the propositions say without noticing that the
propositions themselves were cases in point, just as he may
study grammar without noticing that the grammarian is
keeping the rules.57
This is where, in his original article, Ryle left his
criticism; the sequel is published for the first time
below and the controversy follows directly the
lines set in Ryle's original critical foray.
56 Ibid. 112.
57Ibid. 112.
Ixiv
Leaving to one side the period detail of this
crossing of swords and gnawing of bones, it is
instructive to make one or two general comments
on the relation between Ryle and Collingwood.
Although each would have regarded the other as
firmly placed in a different philosophical camp,
nonetheless, from the distance of half a century of
hindsight, it is possible to see that the two philosophers perhaps shared more in common than they
might have acknowledged at the time. In many
ways Ryle's own philosophy and philosophical
procedures, together with some of his conclusions,
do not appear so far removed from Collingwood's
own. Although Ryle did not acknowledge the
point, their views on mind are strikingly similar in
that both tend to resolve mind into activity; 'mind
is what it does' was a slogan derived from Gentile,
a philosopher studied by both Collingwood and
Ryle.58 For both thinkers a body-mind dualism was
anathema; equally, their view of philosophy was
that it is not deductive nor inductive but both at
once; that its method is in some sense dialectical;
that philosophy reflects on lower-level experience;
that philosophy is concerned with uncovering
presuppositions and that it makes clear what in
some sense we already know.59 We might further
58 See G. D'Oro, 'Collingwood and Ryle on the Concept of
Mind'.
59 See 'Philosophical Arguments', Collected Essays, vol. 2,
196-7 and 'Taking Sides in Philosophy', Collected Essays,
vol. 2, 162--3.
1xv
speculate that some of Ryle's work was stimulated
by the correspondence, for example, his 1937 paper
on 'Taking Sides in Philosophy', which takes as its
starting point some of the issues which arose in the
correspondence with Collingwood.60
'Method and Metaphysics'
The correspondence between Collingwood and
Ryle took place in May and early June 1935. On
19 June Collingwood delivered a paper on 'Method
and Metaphysics' to the Jowett Society in Oxford.
In this lecture he showed how the scale of forms
method of analysis and the associated conception of
philosophical method could be applied to a metaphysical question, the general nature of reality. He
endeavoured to show that reality is not a class concept but a philosophical concept to which the rules
of classification appropriate to the empirical or the
exact sciences do not apply. The possibility of metaphysics was thereby defended on the grounds that
60 For further contemporary discussion, see E. E. Harris,
'Mr. Ryle and the Ontological Argument', in which he came
to Collingwood's defence from a broadly Hegelianviewpoint.
Ryle responded to Harris in his 'Back to the Ontological
Argument'. Having had his reply to Ryle's reply turned
down by Mind, Harris returned to the fray in 1972 with his
paper on 'Collingwood's Treatment of the Ontological
Argument and the CategoricalUniversal'. For Ryle'sgeneral
estimation of Collingwood see Philosophical Arguments and
Autobiographical', 13-14.
1xvi
(because reality is not a class concept) metaphysics
as the search for the general nature of reality is not
an empty search for a bare abstraction. This lecture
was delivered two weeks after the final letter to
Ryle and its composition must have overlapped the
occasion of the correspondence. It serves to
amplify some of the points developed in that
correspondence,
in particular concerning the
nature of philosophical concepts and classes; it is
evident from the text that there are several direct
references to some of the issues dealt with in the
correspondence, together with several oblique references to some of Ryle's comments.
'Method and Metaphysics' is interesting not
only as a systematic application of the doctrines of
the essay on Method, but also as an illustration of
Collingwood's acceptance of some of the main
themes of Bradley's philosophy, in particular the
doctrine of degrees of truth and reality. It was
remarked earlier that the Essay finally allowed
Collingwood to accept this doctrine which he had
previously found objectionable. As we have seen,
Collingwood interpreted Bradley in the light of his
conception of the scale of forms, finding him thus
interpreted perfectly acceptable. The papers on
Bradley and on 'Method and Metaphysics' are
testimony to Collingwood's willingness, finally
after years of doubt, to approve and employ the
idea of degrees of truth and reality. Bradleian
echoes also sound in the reference to the 'unearthly
ballet of bloodless categories'.
In 'Method and Metaphysics'
addresses reality as a philosophical concept:
1xvii
Collingwood
I have to show, then, that when I speak of the general nature

of reality I am using the words general nature in a different
sense from that in which we speak of the general nature of
men or triangles. These are what I call class-concepts; and
thus what I have to show, in order to defend the possibility
of metaphysics against the kind of objection I am considering, is that reality is not a class-concept.
For the purpose of the present paper, I need not show that
this demonstrandum is true; I need only show that it follows
from, or is contained in, the argument of my Essay. It is in fact
a particular case of a generalization there stated in the second
chapter: viz. that no philosophical concept is a class-concept. I
have argued in that chapter that whereas concepts like man and
triangle consist of characteristics common to all men and all
triangles and are for that reason amenable to the ordinary
logical rules of definition, classificationand division, philosophical concepts, of which reality is one, do not consist of common
characteristics and are not amenable to these rules. [MM 3--4]
Later he explains that:
I should expect the concept of reality, like other philosophical
concepts, to exhibit the structure of a scale of forms, where
the different kinds of real things differ both in the kind and
in the degree of reality that they possess; a scale nowhere going
down to zero, so that there is no such thing as the completely
unreal, but one in which every term is relativelyunreal by contrast with higher terms, except the highest of all, and I should
not expect that we could know, except in a very dim and imperfect way, what the absolutely highest term is. (MM 8)
This seems to imply that there is no distinction in
philosophy between the concept of reality and reality
itself. Our understanding of reality is necessarily
1xviii
conceptual and therefore reality, as we understand
it, is arranged as a scale of forms. Collingwood's
idealism, revealed here, was recessive (although
implicit) in the Essay but emerges more strongly in
some of the manuscripts written immediately after
its publication.
An Essay on Philosophical Method and
An Essay on Metaphysics
We noted earlier the peculiarity that An Essay on
Metaphysics neither refers to the earlier Essay nor
(so it would seem) employs its method. This would
be merely an interesting quirk were it not that
various commentators have argued that in the
meantime Collingwood fundamentally changed his
mind on the relation between philosophy and
history and embraced an historical relativism in
which history swallowed philosophy whole. For
this reason it is worth outlining the reasons for
believing that the appearance of radical change has
no corresponding substance in reality. This should
not be taken to imply that there was no change or
development in Collingwood's thinking or that it
is free of tension, occasional obscurity and contradiction. Nonetheless the later position is compatible with the earlier position. Let us consider how
this assertion might be justified.
First, Collingwood neither referred to such a
change, nor showed any indication that he believed
1xix
that there had been such a change, and (further) all
of his later references to the Essay are positive.
This is especially clear in An Autobiography
and The Principles of Art. Nonetheless, it should
be conceded that it seems remarkable that An
Essay on Metaphysics should contain no reference
to the earlier Essay. Paradoxically, this absence is
made more rather than
less remarkable by
Collingwood's express desire that the two Essays
should be regarded as companions. Indeed, he
issued explicit instructions to the Clarendon Press
that the two Essays should be regarded as Volume
I and Volume II in his series of Philosophical
Essays; and he changed the title from
An
Introduction to Metaphysics to clarify their status as
companion volumes. This deepens the puzzle as to
why he made no reference in the later work to the
earlier, but it was not the action of a man who had
consciously repudiated the earlier work. Of course
Collingwood could have been radically mistaken
about the import of his own doctrines and failed
to recognise or acknowledge the contradictions and
differences. But this is surely implausible. The
absence of internal cross reference is, then, remarkable, but it does not point to the conclusion that
there was a radical conversion. Of course it should
be recognised that Collingwood used a different
vocabulary in the later work, but this was hardly
unusual for him: in fact it is precisely what he did
throughout his philosophical career, fashioning his
1xx
thinking anew for each philosophical occasion,
problem and audience.61
Secondly, absolute presuppositions (to which the
metaphysician is allotted the task of discovering
and cataloguing) clearly have a close affinity with
what Collingwood earlier identified as philosophical concepts or transcendentals. They are nonempirical concepts concerning the general nature
of reality; they are both universal (not aggregative
or enumerative) and categorical. They are not
generalizations derived from experience but yardsticks brought to bear on experience. On this
understanding they are aligned with the themes of
the Essay on Method and other writing pre-dating
it, for example, Faith and Reason published in 1928.
Thirdly, it is worth considering another level of
connection between the two essays. Both were
regarded by Collingwood as examinations of the
presuppositions
of philosophy itself,
and
regarded such an examination as vital to philosophy
as a self-reflective discipline. In the Essay on
Philosophical Method this emerges most strongly in
his criticism of the failure of the analytical school
to address the issue of their own presuppositions-see Chapter VII, 2below. There he argues that the
he
61 Collingwood instructed the Clarendon Press on the

relationship between the two Essays in a letter of 3 June 1939.
For extended justification of the claim that there was no radical discontinuity in Collingwood's philosophy, see J. Connelly,
Metaphysics, Method and Politics, chs. 1-3, and G. D'Oro,
Collingwood and the Metaphysics of Experience, chs. 4 and 6.
1xxi
methods and procedures of the analytic school rest
on unacknowledged and unanalysed presuppositions which need to be brought to light. Just as An
Essay on Philosophical Method is a self-reflective
account of philosophy directed upon itself, an
examination of the presuppositions of philosophy
and its method, so An Essay on Metaphysics is
also philosophy of philosophy. Like the earlier
Essay it is consciously self-reflective; in some ways
it operates on a deeper level of analysis. In the
earlier Essay Collingwood assumed the existence of
philosophical concepts and took that as his starting
point; in the later Essay he sought to prove the existence of this class of propositions (and show that
metaphysics
was possible) by
demonstrating
that absolute presuppositions as logical features of
thought can neither be regarded as analytically true
nor derived empirically. The Essay on Method is in
agreement, but did not take its task to be the
demonstration of the existence of philosophical
concepts. Metaphysics sought to demonstrate that
absolute presuppositions do not operate asordinary
concepts or propositions do; that these lie at the
root of all our thinking; that some are permanent and necessary, whilst others are temporary
and contingent; and that the predicates 'true' or
'false' do not apply where they are taken to refer
to normal procedures of empirical verification.
Concepts of this type are discussed in chapter II and
later in chapter VIII of Method where Collingwood
considered the principles of induction. Some of
1xxii
these principles are purely logical principles
presupposed by all induction whatever; in addition
there is another set of principles (for example, that
'the future will probably resemble the past') which
are 'necessary assumptions' in inductive thinking.
These principles are not confirmed by the successful conduct of the arguments based on them
because 'unless we assumed them, we could never
conduct arguments of this kind at all', and what is
increased by the success of our inductive inquiries
is not the probability of such principles as that the
future will resemble the past, but the probability
of such hypotheses as that fermentation is due to
micro-organisms (EPM 166-7). This account is
strikingly similar to the remark in Metaphysics that
'we do not acquire absolute presuppositions by
arguing; on the contrary, unless we have them
already arguing is impossible to us. Nor can we
change them by arguing; unless they remained
constant all our arguments would fall to pieces. We
cannot confirm ourselves in them by "proving"
them; it is proof that depends on them, not they on
proof (EM 173). There is a difference in that in
the earlier work these principles are characterized
as assumptions (even if 'necessary' assumptions)
whereas later Collingwood drew a sharper distinction between 'assumptions' and 'presuppositions'.
But this does not detract from the point because
the key features of the 'absolute presuppositions'
to which he later drew attention are also the key
features of the 'assumptions' of the earlier Essay.
1xxiii
It is essentially a verbal rather than a substantial
difference. It has already been remarked that
Collingwood did not generally concern himself
with terminological consistency
between
his
writings, and here is a case in point. However, on
this point he did develop a sharper set of distinctions, the intermediary stages of which can be seen
in 'The
Nature of Metaphysical Study' and
'Function of Metaphysics in Civilization'.62
The account of absolute presuppositions in the
later Essay therefore maps closely onto the
account of philosophical concepts in the earlier
Essay. In Method the emphasis is on concepts and
on the distinction between philosophical and
empirical classifications;
in Metaphysics,
by
contrast, the emphasis is on presuppositions
and the distinction between propositions and
absolute presuppositions. Absolute presuppositions, like philosophical concepts or transcendentals, are empirically unverifiable and yet must
necessarily be postulated if certain forms of
inquiry are to be possible.63
A final set of observations serves to bring out the
interesting continuities of doctrine between the
two Essays. One of Collingwood's central points in
both Essays is that reliance on presuppositions is
inescapable and that this also applies to philosophy
62Both reprinted in the rev. edn. of EM. For discussion,
see Rex Martin's Introduction.
63 See G. D'Oro, Collingwood and the Metaphysics of
Experience, 65.
1xxiv
itself: hence his critical comments in Method on the
failure of the emerging analytical school to provide
an account of their own presuppositions. Further,
he maintained, as applied to philosophy they give
rise to the peculiarities of self-instantiation and
self-reference considered in Chapter VI of Method.
The issue of philosophy's own presuppositions is
addressed head on in Metaphysics:
Another perplexity as to method, or perhaps only the same
one over again, arises from the recognition that metaphysics
investigates presuppositions. Surely, it is argued, a science that
investigates presuppositions must avoid making presuppositions in the course of its own work; for how can you detect a
presupposition in your neighbour's eye if you have a whole
faggot of them in your own? So the idea got about that metaphysics must be a science with no presuppositions whatever,a
science spun out of nothing by the thinker's brain. This is the
greatest nonsense. If metaphysics is a science at all it is an
attempt to think systematically,that is,by answering questions
intelligently disposed in order. The answer to any question
presupposes whatever the question presupposes. And because
all science begins with a question (for a question is logically
prior to its own answer) all science begins with a presupposition. Metaphysics, therefore, either has presuppositions or is
no science. The attempt at a metaphysics devoid of presuppositions can only result in a metaphysics that is no science, a
tangle of confused thoughts whose confusion is taken for a
merit. Not only has metaphysics quite definite presuppositions, but every one knows what some of them are, for as
metaphysics is a historical science it shares the presuppositions
of all history; and every one, nowadays,has some acquaintance
with the principles of historical thought. (EM 63)
Metaphysics itself, therefore, rests on presuppositions and needs to acknowledge them; these
presuppositions concern the nature of metaphysics
itself and hence are both subject and object in
metaphysical
thought.
In his Lectures
Metaphysics
delivered
in 1940, Collingwood
addressed this point:
Ixxv
on
An inquiry into the nature of metaphysics is a metaphysical

inquiry. The inquiry conducted in these lectures consists of
a historical (critical) examination of the presuppositions of
metaphysicians, with particular regard to their presuppositions as to the nature of metaphysics itself. The inquiry is an
effort to arrive at a definition of metaphysics. Yet this definition when finally stated will be found to be one of the
presuppositions of the very inquiry itself, a presupposition
which has determined the method of procedure.
If this seeming circularity is not a legitimate objection,
history must be critical, and it must be critical in a special
sense. If the object of the historian's study is conceived as
something quite separate and independent of the historian
himself, there must be absolute standards available at the
beginning of the inquiry. If the standards are to arise from
the inquiry itself, there must be some sort of unity between
historian and object. The historian is, in a sense, making
history his own; the criticism is, in a sense, self-criticism.
In metaphysics, the method of thought becomes the object
of thought, i.e. object and method of study become unified.
There is no external, independent subject.64
This set of remarks relates the themes of the lectures and of An Essay onMetaphysics directly to the
central concerns of An Essay on Philosophical
Method. It also indicates clearly that Collingwood's
64 Notes on 'Lectures on Metaphysics' taken by Louis
Hector. A copy of these notes is held at the Collingwood and
British Idealism Centre, Cardiff.
1xxvi
use of the term 'history' should be considered
carefully and that it does not suggest that philosophical problems are promptly resolvable into history.
On the contrary, the term 'history' here refers to the
actuality of self-critical and self-referential thought.
The purpose of this part of the introduction has
been to place An Essay on Philosophical Method
within the context of Collingwood's philosophical
life and work. Some of the philosophical themes
arising out of the argument of the Essay are now
explored.
(B) The Role and Character of
Philosophical Analysis
The Argument of the Essay
The main task of the Essay is to show that philosophy has a distinctive method and subject matter.
Collingwood outlines the distinctive method and
subject matter of philosophy by comparing it with
that of the natural and exact sciences.
Philosophical method differs from that employed
in the exact sciences such as geometry and mathematics because philosophical analysis does not
proceed from Cartesian first principles known
through the natural light of reason. Philosophy,
therefore, is not a deductive science. The method
of philosophy also differs from that employed in the
natural sciences because philosophers are not in the
business of
formulating empirical hypotheses.
Ixxvii
Philosophy is therefore not an inductive science that
establishes conclusions by means of observation and
empirical generalization. But if philosophical inferences are neither deductive, as in exact science, nor
inductive, as in empirical science, what is their
specific character? Collingwood's answer is that, at
one level, philosophy resembles the exact sciences
because it is concerned with relations of entailment
that are known a priori or through reflection, rather
than empirically. Yet it differs from exact science
because in philosophy the direction of argument is
not from logical ground to consequent, but from
the consequent to its logical ground. This has an
important implication for what Collingwood takes
philosophical inquiry to be capable of establishing.
Philosophy, for Collingwood, does not enable us to
know something completely new; rather it enables
us to become clearer about what we already, albeit
implicitly, know. In the Essay Collingwood is particularly interested in unveiling the fundamental
principles that underpin the practical and theoretical
sciences. He claims that what lies at the basis of the
distinction between practical and theoretical sciences
is the employment of different basic concepts, the
concept of mind and matter respectively. These
are concepts that we always, no matter how unselfconsciously, employ when making claims that seek to
explain either human conduct rationally or natural
events causally. The concepts of mind and matter,
Collingwood claims, are philosophical concepts for
they can be neither abstracted from experience, as
Ixxviii
empirical hypotheses, nor can they be known a priori by means of intellectual intuition, as Cartesian
first principles. Philosophy thus has a distinctive
method: the method of philosophy is neither
deductive nor inductive but regressive or transcendental.
Philosophy also has a distinctive subject matter
that differs from that of the deductive and inductive
sciences. The inductive sciences are concerned
with particulars and their claims never have
genuinely universal status. The exact sciences, on
the other hand, are concerned not with particulars
but with universals, irrespectively of whether
they are empirically instantiated. The geometer,
for instance, is concerned with the concept of
triangles, rather than with particular triangles, and
claims in the exact sciences have genuinelyuniversal
status. For Collingwood, the subject matter of
philosophy differs from that of the exact and
empirical sciences alike for, like the former, it
makes genuinely universal claims but, like the
latter, is not indifferent to the existence of its object
in so far as philosophical concepts are necessarily
instantiated in our practical and theoretical judgements. The philosophical concept of mind, for
instance, is instantiated in the explanation of
actions since we cannot explain an occurrence
rationally without using the concept of mind.
Collingwood explains why philosophy has a
distinctive subject matter in the context of his
discussion of the ontological proof. He believes the
1xxix
importance of this proof to be that of establishing
that philosophical concepts exist necessarily in the
sense that they are necessarily instantiated in
judgements of a certain logical form. As coherent
thinking necessarily involvesthe employment of the
principle of non-contradiction, causal and rational
explanation necessarily involve the employment of
philosophical concepts. Collingwood's attempt to
explicate the subject matter of philosophy in terms
of a sympathetic appraisal of the ontologicalproof
has generated an enormous controversy that has
unfortunately diverted attention away from his
account of philosophical method. But whatever
one might think about Collingwood's unorthodox
rehabilitation of the ontological proof, it is quite
obvious that, if he had used the ontological proof
to show that 'mind' and 'matter' must necessarily
'exist' in the metaphysical sense of 'necessary
existence', he would have been blatantly contradicting what may be justly regarded as one of the
central themes of the Essay: the doctrine of the
overlap of classes.
According to this doctrine, philosophical concepts differ from empirical ones because they
overlap in their instances. The species of a philosophical genus, for Collingwood, capture purely
conceptual distinctions, or distinctions in the
respective subject matters of the sciences of
nature and mind. For this reason the same empirical objects can be described in different ways,
depending on whether they are investigated as an
1xxx
expression of thought or a manifestation of natural laws. The rehabilitation of the ontological
proof is therefore compatible with Collingwood's
account of the overlap of classes only to the extent
that it is employed to draw attention to the
ontological difference,
i.e. to the
difference
between beings and their Being. Interpreted in
this way, at least, it can easily be reconciled with
Collingwood's claim that 'reality ... is not a class
concept'(MM 6).
Finally, in the Essay Collingwood not only
defends the claim that philosophy has a method
and subject matter that differs from that of the
exact and the empirical sciences alike. He also puts
forward the view that there is a distinctively philosophical notion of 'progress'. The idea of what it
means to make progress in philosophy can be elucidated through Collingwood's discussion of the
scale of forms. For Collingwood, the concepts in a
philosophical scale are organized in a dialectical
progression, i.e. they are ordered not chronologically but logically in such a way that the transition
from lower to higher exemplifies a better approximation to the philosophical genus. We will return
to these themes later. For the moment suffice it to
say that, taken in tandem, Collingwood's account
of the overlap of classes and of the scale of forms
clearly reveal the influence that Kant and Hegel
respectively have exercised on his thought. But as
is usually the case with great thinkers, such influences are complexly mediated and have been
1xxxi
subtly appropriated to give rise to a truly original

contribution to philosophy.
The Critique of Naturalism
The argument of An Essay on Philosophical
Method was elaborated in response to two positions
of which Collingwood was equally critical: philosophical naturalism and metaphysical realism. As
the Essay
is best understood
in relation to
Collingwood's dual critique of naturalism and realism, we will outline Collingwood's philosophical
project as it emerges from this dual critique.
Let us begin by considering Collingwood's critical
engagement
with
philosophical
naturalism.
Collingwood's critique of naturalism finds expression in the claim that concepts or universals cannot
be reduced to empirical classes and that to reduce all
concepts to empirical classes necessarily entails losing
sight of the specific subject matter of philosophy, in
effect denying the possibility of philosophy itself.
Natural scientists, for Collingwood, classify, whereas
philosophers do no such thing: philosophers make
distinctions. In order to do justice to the nature of
philosophical inquiry one must accept that not all
distinctions 'cut nature at the joints', that is,that not
all concepts are empirical concepts.
The attempt to reduce concepts to empirical
classes is implicit in early twentieth-century discussions of the relationship between language and logic.
1xxxii
Bertrand Russell, in The Philosophy of Logical
Atomism,65 and Gilbert Ryle, in 'Systematically
Misleading Expressions', pointed out that all too
often, in ordinary statements with a subjectpredicate form, the position of the grammatical
subject is occupied by qualitative or attributive
expressions, that is, by words that, from a logical
rather than grammatical point of view, should be
described
as predicates.
Statements such
as
'Unpunctuality is reprehensible' or 'Virtue is its own
reward' are examples of everyday expressions in
which the position of the grammatical subject is
occupied by what is, logically speaking, a predicate.
Statements such as these are misleading because
they may convey the impression that they are used
to denote or refer to entities such as 'virtue' or
'punctuality'. Philosophers should be wary of
expressions that invest attributes with nominative
status, that is, of expressions that contain bogus
(logical) subjects since it is the mismatch between
the grammatical and logical form of propositions
that encourages the philosophical belief in the
existence of transcendent metaphysical entities such
as Beauty or Goodness. Russell and Ryle place their
analysis of the relationship between the grammatical and the logical form of the proposition in the
service of an antimetaphysical programme whose
goal was to eliminate from philosophical discourse
unwanted Platonic entities (Beauty, Punctuality,
65 See in particular his theory of descriptions.
1xxxiii
Virtue, etc.) whose existence seemed to be entailed
by the placing of universal terms in the position of
the grammatical subject.
The positive assumptions on which this antimetaphysical programme rests are only implicit in
Russell's and Ryle's discussion of the relationship
between the logical and grammatical form of
propositions, but they emerge very clearly when one
considers the account of universals that is required
in order to avoid the ontological traps in which the
metaphysicians of the past fell. To avoid an
unnecessary multiplication of entities, universals
should be construed as empirical classes and propositions employing universals as summative or enumerative propositions about matters of fact. Russell, and
Ryle in particular, did not suggest that we should
actually change our ways of speaking. But they certainly believed that the philosopher should be clear
that to understand what is meant by (for example)
'redness' isto understand propositions of the kind 'xi
is red; X2 is red; X3 is red': to know a concept, for
Russell and Ryle, is to know its extension.
In the Essay Collingwood claims that concepts
can and should be considered from two different
points of view: extension and intension. When considered from the point of view of their extension
concepts are said to be general because they apply
to more than one particular. When considered from
the point of view of their intension concepts are said
to be generic because they subsume within themselves a plurality of other concepts. To illustrate
1xxxiv
the distinction one might consider the concept
'animal'. The concept is general as it applies to
more than one thing; it is generic because it can be
subdivided into further, more specific concepts
that define objects more concretely, such as the
concepts 'vertebrates' and 'invertebrates'.
Collingwood's
rejection
of
the
proposed
identification of universals with empirical classes
reflects his view that a purely extensionalist account
of universals necessarily loses sight of
the
general-generic
distinction.
In
particular
Collingwood is convinced that the kinds of concepts
with which philosophy is concerned cannot be
defined extensionally because the distinctions with
which philosophers deal are distinctions to which
there do not necessarily correspond any empirical
differences. To illustrate this point one might
consider Collingwood's discussion of the generic
concept of the good and its internal subdivision into
the concepts of the pleasant, expedient, and right.
For Collingwood, the philosophical distinction
between the specific concepts of the pleasant, the
expedient, and the right does not coincide with the
empirical distinction between actions that are pleasant, expedient, and right, since it is in principle
quite possible for any particular act to exemplify all
three concepts. The suggestion that statements
containing universals in the position of the grammatical subject should be rephrased by stating,
'xi is . . .; X2 is . . .; X3 is . . .', fails to take into
account that not all conceptual distinctions map
1xxxv
onto empirical classes and consequently that not all
universals can be defined extensionally. It is a characteristic of philosophical concepts that they may
coincide or overlap in their instances. Since philosophical concepts coincide or overlap in their
instances, they capture distinctions to which there may
correspond no empirical differences. Collingwood
reiterates this point when considering the concepts
that make the distinction between the domain of
inquiry of natural science and of history possible:
the concepts of mind and of matter. Since the philosophical distinction between the concepts of the
pleasant, expedient, and right does not map on to
the distinction between the empirical class of
actions that are pleasant, expedient, and right, but
rather illustrates the distinction between
the
hedonist, utilitarian, and deontological principles,
the distinction between the concept of mind and the
concept of matter is not a distinction between
the particulars that exemplify either concepts but
between the respective areas of competence of the
natural and social sciences.
From Collingwood's perspective the proposed
identification of universals with empirical classes
not only denies universals ontological or metaphysical status, thereby disposing of the problem
of the unnecessary multiplication of entities which
deeply concerned both Russell and Ryle; it also
carries the dubious implication that all classifications and distinctions are empirical classifications
and distinctions, that there are no 'distinctions of
1xxxvi
reason'. More importantly, since distinctions of
reason (conceptual distinctions to which there
correspond no empirical differences), are the subject
matter of philosophical inquiry, Russell and Ryle's
reduction of concepts to empirical classes leaves
philosophy with no domain of inquiry of its own.
If philosophy is to have a subject matter and
method of its own, therefore, there must be
distinctions
of reason, that is, philosophical
concepts to which there correspond no empirical
differences. It is Collingwood's task in the Essay to
show that there are such distinctively philosophical concepts and distinctions.
One might object to Collingwood's distinction
between philosophical and empirical classifications
by claiming that extensional overlap is not sufficient to distinguish between philosophical and
empirical concepts.
Quine, for instance, has
pointed out that empirical or non-philosophical
concepts too could overlap in their instances, as it
is the case, say, with the empirical concepts 'creatures with a heart' and 'creatures with kidneys'.66
All creatures with a heart have kidneys; hence the
two concepts are extensionally equivalent although
they are not intensionally the same.
There is, however, an important
difference
between extensional overlap in the creatures with
heart/creatures
with kidneys case and
the
mind/matter case. When we describe a creature as
66W. V. Quine, 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism', in From a
Logical Point of View, 21.
1xxxvii
having a heart (but not kidneys) we provide an
incomplete empirical description. The semantic
gap between the two concepts, therefore, can be
closed by showing that having kidneys is a necessary ontological condition of having a healthy,
functioning heart. The distinction between the
concept of mind and the concept of matter, on the
other hand, is not a result of a failure to include
some empirical attributes in the description of a
thing: when we describe a creature as rational or
minded we do not provide an incomplete empirical description as if, say, being minded or rational
were an empirical characteristic of man alongside
the fact that man is also a featherless biped. We
cannot mix and match concepts which belong to
anthropology, understood as an empirical science
of man, and to history, understood as a normative
science of mind, in the way in which we can mix
and match empirical concepts. When we describe
a being as rational we do not provide a partial or
incomplete empirical description of a biological
species so that by adding the adjective 'rational' to
'human', to produce the expression 'rational
human being', we could close the semantic gap
between the concept of a rational and the concept
of a human being. To predicate humanity and
rationality of x is not the same thing as predicating
possession of a heart and kidneys: the concept of
mind and the concept of matter have a different
meaning not because they capture selectively certain empirical characteristics of a thing (in the way
in which the concept of square and red do), but
1xxxviii
because they determine what kind of thing one is
talking about, actions or events, mind or matter.
Philosophical distinctions are not empirical classifications but distinctions of reason that determine
a priori the subject matter or regional ontologies of
the first-order sciences. The conclusion to be
extracted from Collingwood's discussion of the
overlap of classes, therefore, is that there are some
concepts--philosophical concepts--which are not
empirical but a priori, and that this explains why
there is a set of problems that cannot simply be
resolved or eclipsed by the progress of natural science, problems which are and continue to be the
peculiar province of philosophy.
The Critique of Realism
Having considered the Essay in relation to the
claims of philosophical naturalism we shall now
consider it as a reply to, or an extended argument
against, realism. Collingwood's main dissatisfaction with realism is that it offers no way of
accounting for how forms of knowledge that rest
on mutually exclusive conceptions of reality can
coexist. The conception of reality with which
natural scientists operate, reality as nature or system
of natural laws, for instance, conflicts with the
conception of reality that is presupposed by moral
discourse, folk psychology, and history. On realist
assumptions there is no way of reconciling the
claims of theoretical reason with those of practical
1xxxix
reason. Realists must assume that only one of the
forms of experience is true of things-in-themselves,
as two or more contradictory claims cannot be true
of one and the same object. For Collingwood, if
the claims of natural science are to be reconciled
with those of practical reason, the concepts which
lie at the basis of their respective domains of
inquiry must be construed not as ontological or
metaphysical truths but as epistemic postulates or
presuppositions that guide our reasoning quanatural
scientists and qua agents. 'Mind' and 'matter', in
other words, are not to be construed in a Cartesian
fashion, as different kinds of substances, but in
a Kantian fashion, as presuppositions or guiding
principles of theoretical and practical reason.
Collingwood's alternative to metaphysical realism
takes the form of a weak antirealism. Collingwood's
antirealism is weak because it does not deny
the existence of mind-independent objects, by
identifying them with ideas, as Berkeley did. What
Collingwood denies is only that the fundamental
concepts through which reality is experienced are
metaphysical entities, like Platonic forms or
Cartesian substances. Collingwood's antirealism,
like Kant's transcendental idealism, was developed
primarily in response to the antinomical nature of
thought rather than, like Berkeley's immaterialism,
as an answer to the problem of scepticism
concerning the external world. What drives
Collingwood's antirealism is the (Kantian) view
that the incompatible assumptions governing
xc
theoretical and practical reason cannot be reconciled on realist assumptions, rather than the
(Berkeleian) conviction that common-sense beliefs
in the existence of the objects of perception are
best vindicated
on immaterialist
premisses.
Although Collingwood's antirealism more closely
resembles Kant's epistemic idealism rather than
Berkeley's ontological idealism or immaterialism,
there is no trace of the Kantian Ding-an-sich in
Collingwood's weak antirealism. Correspondingly,
there is no suggestion that reality might be known
as it is 'in itself, independently of the concepts
and categories through which we finite rational
beings know it. Collingwood's position on this
issue is not so much that reality as it is in itself is
not known, but that it simply does not make sense
to speak of knowing things in themselves. As all
knowledge
is epistemically
conditioned,
the
expression 'epistemically unconditioned knowledge' or knowledge of things-in-themselves is an
oxymoron. Consequently the kind of sceptical
doubts which may arise as a result of holding that
things-in-themselves are unknowable for us is
misguided in principle.
The reasons why the expression 'epistemically
unconditioned knowledge' involves an oxymoron
may be best understood if we take a step back and
remind ourselves of Collingwood's general--generic
distinction as applied to concepts. As we saw,
concepts are general in their relation to particulars
(they apply to more than one thing) and generic in
xci
relation to other concepts (they subsume within
themselves a number of more concrete concepts or
marks). For Collingwood a concept can be infinite
with respect to its extension (it can have an infinite
number of particulars falling under it), but it
cannot be infinite with respect to its intension (it
cannot be subdivided into an infinite number of
marks or more concrete concepts). The inabilityof
concepts to be infinite with respect to their intension explains why, for Collingwood, scepticism of
an epistemological nature, that is, scepticism arising from the consideration that reality as it is in
itself may not resemble reality as conceptually
mediated, is misguided. For Collingwood, if we
climb up the conceptual ladder and progressively
ascend from species to genus (for instance from
'cow' to 'mammal', from 'mammal' to 'vertebrate',
from 'vertebrate' to 'animal', from 'animal' to 'living
organism', etc.), we move from more concrete
concepts to concepts that are less specific or more
abstract. If this process were carried through to its
logical conclusion, one would ultimately reach a
concept that contains within itself all marks, a
concept so abstract that it would be unable to capture any aspect of reality. Conceptually unmediated
knowledge or knowledge of things-in-themselves,
for Collingwood, is the kind of 'knowledge' one
would get at the top of the conceptual ladder. Yet,
since the concept at the summit of the conceptual
ladder is the most abstract concept, it is also unable
to single out any subject matter. In An Essay on
xcii
Metaphysics, Collingwood claims that the concept
at the summit of the conceptual ladder is the
concept of pure Being and that metaphysics, traditionally understood as an investigation into the
ultimate structure of reality (as ontology or the
study of pure being), is a science without a subject
matter. Reality, for Collingwood, can only be
known as a system of natural laws, rational process,
and object of aesthetic contemplation, not in itself.
The kind of scepticism that arises from the
consideration
that epistemically
conditioned
knowledge is defective or lacking in some respect,
rests on the erroneous assumption that there is
such a thing as epistemically unconditioned knowledge of objects, that epistemically unconditioned
knowledge would be a kind of knowledge at all.
Whereas Collingwood refuses to naturalize the
subject matter
of philosophical inquiry, his
critique of realism shows that he is equally reluctant to identify the domain of inquiry of philosophy
with that of traditional metaphysics. Although
he often speaks as if he were asserting the metaphysical existence of philosophical concepts (such
as mind and matter) by alleging that philosophical
propositions have the form 'mind exists' and
'matter exists', his defence of the possibility of
philosophical inquiry does not entail subscribing
to the existence of a transcendent realm of
real entities. 'Mind' and 'matter' exist not as
Platonic forms but as categories embedded in
the judgements made by historians and natural
xciii
scientists respectively. Such categories determine, a
priori, the kind of reality (natural or historical) with
which the practitioners of the first-order sciences
are concerned. The subject matter of philosophical
inquiry, therefore, is a set of a priori concepts or
categories and the possibility of philosophical
inquiry rests not on an ontological but on an
epistemological notion of transcendence: mind and
matter are a priori epistemic forms that cannot be
empirically justified but are the conditions of the
possibility of knowledge or experience. Philosophy
therefore has a subject matter and method that
differs both from that of natural science and
metaphysics: unlike natural science philosophy
is concerned
not with empirical classes and
classifications but with a priori concepts that lie
at the basis of distinctions of reason; unlike
metaphysics philosophy is concerned with these a
priori concepts as norms governing different forms
of inquiry, rather than as transcendent entities.
The Nature of Philosophical Problems
Collingwood's dual rejection of naturalism and
realism entails a conception of philosophy as a
form of categorial analysis that seeks to bring to
light the fundamental concepts that govern our
experience of reality. This conception of philosophy as categorial analysis bears some resemblance
to the tradition of linguistic philosophy, but also
differs from it in crucial ways. Like linguistic
xciv
philosophers Collingwood defends a conception of
philosophy as conceptual analysis, rather than as an
inquiry into the nature of things, but unlike ordinary language philosophers (such as J. L. Austin) he
is not concerned with mere linguisticclassifications.
Whereas the way in which we speak about reality
provides an important clue to the way in which we
think about it, there is more to philosophical analysis than merely cataloguing linguistic usage.
Philosophy, as a form of categorial analysis, takes
its cue from the linguistic articulation of reality but
also goes beyond this: the philosopher must reach
deeper and move from the way in which we speak
to the way in which we think, from words to concepts. Hence, although Collingwood rejects the
identification of the subject matter of philosophical inquiry with that of traditional metaphysics, he
is no linguistic philosopher in the narrower sense.
The concepts with which philosophical analysis is
concerned (for example, mind and matter) mark the
boundaries between
domains of inquiry and
determine the sort of inferences to be employed in
the first-order sciences. Philosophical analysis,
therefore, teases out concepts that are implicit in
different forms of reasoning rather than providing
a mere empirical survey of linguistic usage.
The kind of categorial analysis with which
Collingwood is concerned brings out the deep
structure of thought and reveals that the conflict
between theoretical and practical reason has its
roots in mutually exclusive assumptions about
xcv
the nature of reality. This feature of categorial
analysis entails a particular conception of the
nature of philosophical problems and of the goal
of philosophical reflection. For Collingwood, the
fundamental problems of philosophy are neither
historically transitory nor are they artificial problems that are generated by inappropriate theoretical
reflection. The problem of mind-body dualism,
for instance, could not be dismissed either by
showing that it is relative to a prescientific worldview prepared to include immaterial entities or
souls within its ontology, or by arguing that such a
problem arises from a misunderstanding of the
nature of language. Philosophical problems are
neither historically contingent nor
artificially
created by the wrong kind of theoretical reflection:
they have their roots in incompatible discourses
and they surface when radically different conceptions of reality come into contact and conflict with
one another.
Collingwood's belief that philosophical problems
are perennial rather than historically contingent,
and that they have their roots in mutually exclusive conceptions of reality rather than being generated by theoretical reflection, has important
repercussions for his conception of the task of
philosophy. First, since philosophical problems
are perennial problems, philosophical analysis is
not meant to herald the beginning of a postphilosophical era that will no longer be dogged by
questions such as those concerning the relations
xcvi
between mind and body, freedom and determinism. The task of philosophical analysis is to clarify
the presuppositions on which our claims to knowledge rest, in any particular area of experience, and
to disentangle the conceptual knots that arise from
the application of presuppositions and modes of
inference beyond their appropriate domain of
inquiry. Secondly, because philosophical problems
are not generated by inappropriate theoretical
reflection, categorial analysis does not entail a
'therapeutic' conception of philosophy according
to which the main task of the philosopher is to
diagnose the theoretical errors into which philosophers are drawn when they start reflecting upon
our way of speaking about the world. To the extent
that philosophical analysis can be employed to
expose the extension of principles and methods of
inference beyond their appropriate domain of
inquiry, there may indeed be a therapeutic dimension to Collingwood's conception of philosophical
analysis. But nowhere does Collingwood suggest
that the problems with which philosophers have
struggled from time immemorial are primarily the
result of philosophical mistakes.67 Problems such
as those of the relationship between mind and
matter or freedom and determinism are ultimately
67 This observation may naturally suggest a comparison
with, and possibly a contrast to, the philosophy of the later
Wittgenstein. These remarks are directed less against the
position of Wittgenstein than against certain oversimplistic
accounts of his later philosophy.
xcvii
grounded in our ability to distinguish between
agents and patients, actions and events, and will
remain with us as long as such distinctions are part
and parcel of our conceptual framework.
The Autonomy of Philosophy
The Essay is one of the most sustained attempts
within the philosophical tradition to articulate a
conception of philosophy as first science and to
defend the thesis of the autonomy of philosophy.
Its main theme, the nature and method of philosophical inquiry, strikes at the very heart of much
contemporary debate, since it claims afoundational
role for philosophy and argues against a conception
of the philosopher as the mere under-labourer of
science. Collingwood's concern for the autonomy
of philosophy appears particularly prescient in the
light of subsequent attempts to deny the existence
of any sharp boundaries between philosophy and
natural science, notably Quine's repudiation of the
analytic-synthetic distinction as the last obstacle to
the complete naturalization of philosophy. At the
time when Collingwood was writing the Essay, the
logical positivists' critique of metaphysics was in
the air, even though Ayer's Language, Truth and
Logic appeared three years after the publication of
EPM. But whereas Collingwood was aware of the
logical positivists' critique of metaphysics, he could
not have anticipated the kind of antiphilosophical
climate represented by Quine's attempt to take
xcviii
empiricism to its logical conclusions by exposing
the analytic-synthetic distinction as an unempirical dogma of empiricism.68 The kind of consistent
empiricism advocated by Quine, unlike that of the
classical empiricists and logical positivists, implies
that there can be no meaningful statements that
cannot be empirically verified. It denies, in one fell
swoop, analytic and a priori knowledge alike,
thereby ruling out even the possibility that philosophy might, as a last resort, seek refuge amongst
the exact sciences.
Collingwood's defence of the autonomy of philosophy may be clarified by examining it in relation
to three often-cited distinctions: the distinction
between the a priori and the a posteriori, the
analytic and the synthetic, and the necessary and
contingent. The a priori-a posteriori distinction
is an
epistemic
distinction which
divides
knowledge with respect to its mode ofjustification.
The analytic-synthetic distinction is a semantic
distinction that divides knowledge claims into
trivially true (or tautologous) and informative. The
necessary-contingent distinction is a metaphysical
distinction that divides knowledge claims into
those of a necessary and contingent nature.
Philosophical knowledge is a priori knowledge,
knowledge which cannot be justified empirically.
Collingwood makes this point in the 1929 introduction to the 'Lectures on Moral Philosophy'69
where he claims that the method of verification
68 Quine, ibid. 20-46.
69 Collingwood, Lectures on Moral Philosophy, 1929.
xcix
available to empirical scientists is not availableto the
philosopher because whereas empirical concepts
are 'not only different conceptions but [also]
conceptions of different things',70 philosophical
concepts allow in principle for full extensional
equivalence. Whereas a geologist can justify the
concepts of sedimentary and crystalline rocks by
pointing to their respective instances, the philosopher of history cannot justify the concept of
action in the same way since anything which falls
under the concept of 'mind' could also fall under
that of 'matter' and be described as a bodily
movement.
The justification of philosophical
concepts must be sought not empirically but
a priori. What, however, is meant by this? Kant
defined a priori knowledge as knowledge that is
absolutely
independent
of
experience
and
contrasted
it with knowledge that is merely
independent of 'this' or 'that' experience.71 For
Kant we can, for instance, know that if the
foundations of a house are undermined, the house
will fall without actually witnessing 'this' event, but
such knowledge is not absolutely a priori because it
is based on an anticipation of experience based on
previous observations. By contrast, the hypothetical
'if x then y', where the slot occupied by x and y
remains empty, is absolutely a priori since it could
not be known empirically. Kant's point, when
claiming that a priori knowledge is absolutely
independent of experience, is that the logical form
of the judgement could not be known empirically,
70Ibid. 4.
7
II. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B3.
c
whereas the actual content of the claim is
dependent on empirical observation.
Philosophical knowledge, for Collingwood, is
a priori in the sense outlined above because philosophical concepts are embedded in propositions
whose logical form must be presupposed in order
for certain kinds of claims to be possible. The
concept of 'mind', for instance, is embedded in
propositions that establish a rational connection
between the explanans and the explanandum, and
such a rational connection must be presupposed if
mentalistic explanations are to be possible. The
philosophical concepts of 'mind' and 'matter' are
embedded respectively in the logical form of mentalistic and causal explanations, and the latter are
(in a vocabulary that Collingwood will develop
later) 'absolute presuppositions' of history and
natural science. Since the concepts with which
philosophy deals are a priori, the justification of
philosophical concepts is an internalist matter.
In contemporary epistemology the distinction
between internalism and externalism is drawn by
saying that whereas for internalists the factors which
are required for a belief to be justified must be cognitively accessible to a believer, for externalists this
condition does not hold: what is of paramount
importance, for externalists, is the causal history of
a belief. If the debate between internalism and
externalism in epistemology is characterized in
terms of the emphasis that these positions place
respectively on the notion of justification and that of
ci
causation, Collingwood may be more appropriately
described as an internalist since he would not regard
the causal history of a belief as providing any
evidence (of a characteristically philosophical kind)
that a belief isjustified.72 The justification of philosophical concepts, for Collingwood, is secured by
showing how such concepts relate to certain forms
of experience and how they underpin and make
them possible, not by ascertaining how they are
acquired. Collingwood would probably agree with
many present-day internalists that if externalism
were correct, epistemology would no longer be a
branch of philosophy. It would be indistinguishable
from cognitive psychology and hence would have to
be reclassified as a branch of natural science. For
Collingwood, as indeed for present-day internalists,
to drop the requirement that the justificatory
concepts/factors be cognitively accessible would be
tantamount to abandoning the view that philosophy
is an a priori activity to be carried out by reflecting
on the nature of experience.
If we take the taxonomy employed in contemporary debates in epistemology as a point of reference,
Collingwood would
best be described
as a
weak rather than as a strong internalist. Strong
internalists claim that a believer must be aware of
the factors required for a belief to be justified. By
72 Collingwood does not deny a role for justification of an
externalist variety, but believes that it cannot be applied to
philosophical concepts precisely because these concepts are
not of a perceptual kind.
cii
contrast, weak internalists require only that a
believer be capable of becoming aware of them.
Collingwood's position in the Essay represents a
variety of weak internalism because he does not
require (say) social and natural scientists to be
conscious of what a priori principles regulate their
respective forms of inquiry. For Collingwood the
justificatory principles/concepts with which philosophical inquiry is concerned, principles such as
those of mind and matter, are implicit in the practices of first-order scientists but first-order scientists
may not be aware of them. It is the task of philosophical inquiry to render such concepts explicit.
It is clear from this discussion that Collingwood
would be opposed to the project of naturalizing
epistemology, that is, the attempt to transform
epistemology from a normative science concerned
with the question of the justification of belief, to a
branch of cognitive psychology, or a descriptive
science concerned with mapping the relation
between sensory inputs and epistemic outputs.
Although Collingwood would not have encountered
the expression 'naturalized epistemology', he would
undoubtedly have been acquainted with the fundamental ideas underpinning it.73 While the project of
normative epistemology had been clearly laid out by
73 The expression was coined by Quine in his 1969 essay,
'Epistemology Naturalized' in Ontological Relativity and Other
Essays. It should be noted that throughout his philosophical
career, Collingwood was quite clear in his view concerning the
scope and limits of psychology as a science of mind. His
primary objection was that psychology treats thought from
Descartes in the Meditations, the contrast between
epistemology conceived as a normative and as a
descriptive science had been made crystal clear by
Kant who distinguished between the question
concerning the provenance of ideas/concepts from
that of their validity and claimed his transcendental
philosophy to be concerned with the latter, the
quaestio quid iuris. Like Descartes and
Collingwood conceived of philosophyas a normative
activity to be pursued a priori, through a reflection
on the nature of experience and in this respect he
shared their conception of philosophyas first science.
He thought that philosophy should reflect on
the fundamental principles that govern first-order
disciplines. In particular Collingwood concurred
with Kant in holding that philosophy is concerned
with vindicating certain a priori concepts and that
such a vindication properly consists in assessing the
role they play in any attempt to explain how experience is possible. For Collingwood the justification of
philosophical concepts must show that such concepts
are necessarily implicated in our ways of thinking
and speaking about the world. For instance, the
philosophical justification of the concept of mind
ciii
Kant
without, as something external to the psychologist, as a natural

object. He objects that psychology is descriptive and not criteriological or normative, in other words, that it ignores the selfcritical character of thought. For Collingwood's views on the
relation between philosophy and psychology, see especially RP,
39-42; EM, chs. IX-XIII, esp. 107-8 and 115; and A, 92-5. See
also J. Connelly and A. Costall, 'R. G. Collingwood and the
Idea of a Historical Psychology'.
civ
entails showing that the notion of the mental is
inextricably entwined in our attempts to understand
human behaviour by appealing to reasons.
Let us now turn to consider how Collingwood's
conception
of philosophical analysis can be
located with respect to the
analytic-synthetic
distinction. Collingwood's account of philosophical analysis does justice to a widely held view
about the nature of philosophical inquiry: the view
that although philosophical inquiry is a priori in
character, it is not a trivial pursuit or a form of
mere mental hygiene. This point may be best
understood by considering Collingwood's defence
of the possibility of philosophical knowledge
against the so-called paradox of analysis. In its
more general formulation the paradox of analysis
states that there cannot be philosophical analyses
which are both correct and informative. The paradox is based on the view that if an analysis is correct, the identity between the analysans and
analysandum is trivial. Hence all analyses are
either incorrect or tautologous. Collingwood
clearly thought that there are propositions which
are arrived at by means of reflection and which
are nonetheless informative. In fact, in order for
a proposition to qualify as a philosophical proposition, it must satisfy these two requirements:
it must be known a priori and it must be informative. The proposition which defines the domain
of inquiry of history, 'all actions are expressions
of thought' is a case in point. This proposition is,
cv
for Collingwood, not an inductive generalization
since we do not (and cannot) come to know it
empirically by repeated observation. Like analytic claims, philosophical propositions are not
empirically refutable: the proposition 'all actions
are expressions of thought' has more in common
with the proposition 'all bachelors are unmarried
men' than with the proposition 'all swans are
white', since we cannot discard the concept of the
mental in the way in which we discard empirical
concepts and hypotheses. If we come across
something that does not fit the description of an
action, we do not discount the concept of action,
but conclude rather that that something is not an
action. This much philosophical propositions
have in common with self-evidently true analytic
statements. But whereas philosophical propositions thus resemble analytic statements, they are
not analytical in the sense that they are mere definitions whose truth can be known by reflecting
on the meaning of the words used. The claim that
'all actions are expressions of thought' is not the
result of an arbitrary stipulation; it is arrived at
by reflecting on the explanatory practices of historians and by teasing out, from these, the norms
which govern them. Philosophical propositions
differ from analytic claims because we do not
simply accept them as a matter of linguistic
convention or use. To endorse the claim that 'all
actions are expressions of thought' requires
an understanding of what it means to provide
cvi
mentalistic
explanations.
The
relationship
between the subject and predicate concepts in a
philosophical proposition is therefore a priori but
not analytical and philosophical inquiry yields
precisely those kind of analyses that are allegedly
ruled out by the paradox of analysis. Although
philosophical inquiry does not expand our empirical knowledge, it does add to what we know in the
sense that it provides a deeper understanding of
things that were only implicitly known. In so far
as philosophical inquiry enriches our knowledge it
is synthetic. But it is not synthetic in the sense that
it is about matters of fact or that it has existential
import. If we take the a priori-a posteriori
distinction to be a distinction between different
modes of justification and the analytic-synthetic
distinction to be a semantic distinction dividing
trivial from
non-trivial claims, philosophical
propositions may be described
as synthetic
a priori. They are a priori because they cannot be
justified empirically (justification of an appropriately philosophical nature is an internalist matter)
and they are synthetic because they provide
informative or non-tautologous analyses.
Let us now consider the third distinction on the
basis of which we can attempt to explain the nature
of Collingwood's defence of the autonomy of
philosophy, the necessary-contingent
distinction.
Collingwood claims that the subject matter of
philosophy is necessary, not contingent. He makes
this claim by saying that philosophical propositions,
cvii
like analytic statements, are universal rather than
enumerative, and that, like contingent empirical
claims, they are categorical rather than hypothetical.
For this reason philosophical propositions are
necessary in the way in which universal statements
such as 'all bachelors are unmarried men' are, and
yet, like contingent propositions expressing generalizations of an empirical nature ('all cats in this
room are black'), they are existential statements.
Philosophical concepts, in other words, are rather
like the concept of God in the ontological proof:
they exist necessarily. Collingwood goes as far as
reclaiming the centrality of the ontological proof
by saying that the idea of necessary existence (the
idea expressed by the word 'God' in the ontological proof) is the very subject matter of philosophy,
it is that which we are thinking about when we
think philosophically. This claim is controversial
for two reasons. First, the ontological proof is
widely regarded as having failed and, secondly,
Collingwood's account of the overlap of classes
appears to be making a purely conceptual point,
with no
ontological or existential import.
Collingwood's attempt to reclaim the centrality of
the ontological proof and his view that the idea of
necessary existence is that which we think about
when we think philosophically therefore requires
some careful scrutiny. What, in other words, can
possibly be meant by Collingwood's claim that
philosophical concepts, concepts such as 'mind' or
'matter', exist necessarily?
cviii
The view that the subject matter of philosophy
is not contingent is at least as old as one of the
earliest philosophical attempts to articulate the
relationship between particulars and universals.
Plato, for example, believed the object of philosophical knowledge to be transcendent metaphysical forms and particulars to be imperfect
copies of them in the realm of becoming. Whereas
the forms or universals were said to be self-same
and unchanging, the particulars resembling them
were said to be subject to change and decay. The
idea that philosophy is concerned with a necessary
rather than contingent subject matter is as ancient
as the beginning of Western philosophy itself. It is
this idea that Collingwood appears to be reviving.
The way in which Collingwood reappropriates this
venerable thought may perhaps be explained as follows. Let us consider once again the claim that 'all
actions are expressions of thought' and let us take
this to be a philosophical proposition, a proposition that is definitive of the domain of inquiry of
history. The proposition is definitive of history's
domain of inquiry in the sense that it tells us what
historians are concerned with: actions or rational
processes (thought or mind). The philosopher of
history, as opposed to a historian engaged in firstorder inquiry, is concerned with delineating the
subject matter and nature of historical inquiry and
as such s/he is concerned not with particular
actions but with the concept of action itself. The
subject matter of philosophy (the philosophy of
cix
history in this case) is therefore the notion of action
as such, not the empirical instantiations or class of
objects that fall under it, the particulars that Plato
confined to the realm of becoming. The latter are
what practising historians study. Since particulars
are not the subject matter of philosophical investigation, the distinction between universals and
particulars is not a distinction that plays any role
in philosophical thought. Whereas the distinction
between actions and events or that between mind
and matter is a philosophical distinction, the
distinction between particulars and universals is a
distinction between what falls within (universals)
and what falls without (particulars) the domain of
inquiry of philosophy. For this reason, the subject
matter of philosophy resembles that of a priori
sciences such as geometry and mathematics: the
philosopher of history is concerned with the
concept of action very much as the geometer is
concerned with the concept of a triangle rather
than with its instances. The concept of 'action'
exists for the philosophical historian in the way in
which triangles exist for geometers, that is, as ideal
forms or standards. So construed, the idea of
necessary existence which belongs for Collingwood
to the word 'God' in the ontological proof refers
not to particulars but to the concepts in which they
partake. 'Mind' exists, and necessarily exists for
the philosophical historian, because it is what
history is about. Philosophical concepts such as
'mind' and 'matter' necessarily exist for the
cx
philosophy of mind and nature because they define
their domain of investigation, their respective
subject matters or regional ontologies.
In the light of this we can conclude that philosophical propositions may be called metaphysical
in so far as they are of a necessary, non-empirical
nature; they are metaphysical primarily in the negative sense that they are not subject to empirical
verification and refutation. As we have seen, when
the philosopher of history says that 'all actions are
expressions of thought', he does not mean that
some actions (observed ones) are expressions of
thought. Since the claim is not an inductive generalization, it is immune from empirical disconfirmation. But philosophical propositions are not
metaphysical in the sense that they predicate the
existence of philosophical concepts in an unqualified metaphysical or ontological sense of the term
'existence'. The philosophical concept of 'mind'
necessarily exists in the heavily qualified sense that
mind or actions are what history is about. Actions
or mind are not said to exist in an unqualified ontological sense of the word, or independently of the
regional ontologies of the first-order sciences.
Locating Collingwood's conception of philosophical inquiry vis-a-vis the a priori-a posteriori
distinction, the analytic-synthetic distinction, and
the
necessary-contingent
distinction should
enable us to understand why philosophy has an
autonomous domain of inquiry that differs from
that of the natural sciences, the exact sciences, and
cxi
traditional metaphysics alike. Since philosophical
claims are a priori, not empirical, philosophy is not
a natural science; since philosophical claims are not
analytic, philosophy cannot be ranked amongst the
exact sciences; finally, since the kind of claims
made by philosophers are conceptual not ontological (at least not ontological in an unqualified sense
of the word) philosophy cannot be identified with
metaphysics either.
Progress in Philosophical Inquiry
Having outlined the thesis of the autonomy of
philosophy in relation to these three different
distinctions, we can now turn to the claim that
since philosophical propositions are not inductive
generalizations, they are not subject to empirical
disconfirmation. It is important to focus on this
point because one of the fiercest attacks on the
notion of the autonomy of philosophical inquiry is
related precisely to this claim. Quine,74 for
instance, thought that showing that no claim is
immune to revision is tantamount to denying the
very notion of a priori knowledge and hence the
existence of strict boundaries between philosophical
and scientific knowledge. In what sense should we
take philosophical claims to be unrevisable? In one
sense (the empirical sense) philosophical claims
certainly are unrevisable. Since philosophical
74Quine, 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism'.
cxii
propositions such as 'all actions are expressions of
thought' are not enumerative propositions about
matters of fact, they cannot be empirically refuted.
Yet, for Collingwood, the fact that philosophical
propositions are immune from empirical disconfirmation does not mean that philosophical
claims are infallible and therefore unrevisable.
Philosophical claims do not have the status of
indubitable Cartesian first principles, principles
that we could not possibly get wrong. In other
words, immunity from empirical disconfirmation
and infallibility are not equivalent: Collingwood
simply excludes revision in the light of empirical
evidence. The notion of revisability that applies to
philosophical claims is closely connected not to
the idea of empirical verification but to that of
dialectic. In a dialectical argument a claim is
discarded not if it is falsified empirically, but if it
fails to provide an appropriate answer to the
question it has posed or to the problem it was
supposed to solve. For Collingwood, success or
failure in philosophical matters must be measured
with reference to epistemic goals rather than with
reference to ends external to knowledge, such as,
for instance, the survival of the human species.
Whether a philosophical thesis is to be endorsed or
rejected depends
on whether it succeeds
in
vindicating what it was supposed to explain. The
criterion to be employed in deciding whether a
philosophical claim is cogent, therefore, is whether
one can, logically speaking, 'get there from here'. The
cxiii
fact that an explanatory hypothesis might prove
useful or expedient to some other extra-epistemic
goal is a consideration that is irrelevant to the
question of its philosophical cogency or validity.
This notion
of dialectic is inscribed
in
Collingwood's account of the scale of forms and
implies that progress in philosophical inquiry
cannot be measured in terms of natural evolution.
For this reason the notion of progress employed by
so-called 'evolutionary' epistemology is intrinsically ill-suited to capture what it means to make
advances in philosophy. Evolutionary epistemology seeks to combine the idea of the growth of
knowledge with that of natural selection by invoking Darwin's theory of the evolution of the species
as an explanation for the development of human
knowledge. According to Darwin, natural species
not suited to their environment do not survive
because they are in competition with other species
that are better adapted to that environment. The
evolutionary epistemologist applies the principleof
natural selection to the domain of conceptual
formations and claims that epistemic selection
occurs along the lines of natural biological
selection. For the evolutionary epistemologist the
questions to be addressed do not concern issues in
the theory of justification. Collingwood would
probably argue that evolutionary epistemology,
like naturalized epistemology, of which it is a
specific variation, is not an 'epistemology' in the
traditional sense of the word and carries with it the
cxiv
implication that there is no such thing as a
distinctive philosophical method and that there are no
distinctively philosophical problems to be addressed.
To illustrate the notion of progress in philosophical
inquiry one might
consider how
Collingwood uses the notion of a philosophical
scale to vindicate the thesis of the autonomy of history by discarding conceptions of the nature of
historical inquiry that fail to delineate a subject
matter for history (mind/actions) as distinct from
that of the natural sciences
(matter/events).
The
progression
from
'common
sense' to
'scissors-and-paste' and from 'scissors-and-paste'
to 'scientific' history in The Idea of History is an
example of a philosophical scale in which different
claims concerning the nature of historical inquiry
are dialectically revised rather than empirically
refuted. Collingwood's defence of the autonomy of
history does not imply that the concept of mind
serves some useful non-epistemic purpose, but
that it is presupposed in any attempt to account for
how explanations that employ practical arguments
rather than invoke statistical considerations are
possible. In some sense, it may be argued,
Collingwood is concerned with consequences, but
the kind of consequences with which he is
concerned are consequences of a logical rather than
an empirical nature. It is the task of philosophy to
organize our thinking and clarify what conclusions
can be drawn from what premisses, but such a
task does not require any appeal to the empirical
cxv
consequences of thought. Evolutionary epistemology, like some forms of pragmatism, explains the
relative superiority of one knowledge claim over
another by reference to non-epistemic factors such
as the beneficial effects that certain views might
have for the survival of the species, rather than by
assessing competing claims to knowledge and
establishing to what extent they account for the
phenomena they set out to explain. If progress in
philosophy were judged by the standards adopted
in evolutionary epistemology, there would be no
place for a science whose role is to assess the validity of knowledge claims by reference to epistemic
goals rather than biological imperatives such as
that of survival.The kinds of questions of concern
to philosophers would not be questions like 'does
such and such an account of knowledge succeed in
justifying our beliefs in x, y or z?' but rather 'does
such and such a belief system promote survival?'
Collingwood's defence of the autonomy of
philosophical method, as presented here, is closely
connected with his conception of philosophy as
first science. On this conception of philosophy, the
role of philosophical inquiry is to delineate the
a prioriconcepts or categories that make first-order
knowledge possible. This interpretation of the
Essay raises a number of questions in relation to
the development of Collingwood's thought, in
particular to An Essay on Metaphysics. Many
interpreters of Collingwood have claimed that by
the time he came to write An Essay on Metaphysics
cxvi
Collingwood attempted to assimilate philosophy to
history, thereby turning his back on the thesis of
the autonomy of philosophy. In fact, Collingwood's
theoretical philosophy, if discussed at all, is often
associated with this historicist turn, and dismissed
as an infamous attempt to reduce philosophy to the
sociology of knowledge. The story concerning
this alleged turn is complex and would require a
careful discussion of whether the changes in
terminology from Method to Metaphysics are
symptomatic of an underlying change of heart and
a substantial reconsideration of the relationship
between a prioricity and philosophical analysis, or
whether the continuities between Method and
Metaphysics run much deeper than these undeniable changes in terminology seem to suggest. But
such a discussion would divert the focus from
Collingwood's first Essay to his second, and it is
now time to let this greatly and unjustly neglected
philosophical work speak in its own right.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
(A) Writings byCollingwood
Books and Pamphlets
Religion and Philosophy. London: Macmillan, 1916.
Speculum Mentis. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924.
Outlines of a Philosophy of Art. London: Oxford University
Press, 1925 (repr. in Donagan, 1964).
Faith and Reason. London: Benn, 1928 (repr. in Rubinoff,
1968).
The Philosophy of History.
London: published for the
Historical Association by G. Bell, 1930.
The Principles of Art. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1938.
The Principles of History and Other Writings in Philosophy of
History. Edited and with an Introduction by W. H. Dray
and W. J. van der Dussen. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1999.
An Autobiography. London: Oxford University Press, 1939.
An Essay onMetaphysics. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940;rev.
edn. with an Introduction and additional material edited
by Rex Martin, 1998.
The New Leviathan. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1942;rev. edn.
with an Introduction and additional material edited by
David Boucher, 1992.
The Idea of Nature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1945.
The Idea of History. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946;rev. edn.
with an Introduction and additional material edited by
W. J. van der Dussen, 1993.
Articles and Reviews
'The Devil' in Concerning Prayer, ed. L. Dougall. London:
Macmillan, 1916 (repr. in Rubinoff, 1967).
cxviii
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Review of C. J. Ducasse, The Philosophy of An in Philosophy,
vi, 1931(July), 383-6 (repr. in Collingwood Studies, vol. 2,
1995, 204-7).
Review of M. C. D'Arcy, The Nature of Belief, The Criterion,
vol. 11, 1932,334-6 (repr. in CollingwoodStudies, vol. 5,
1998, 142-5).
Collections of Articles
Boucher, D. (ed.), Essays in Political Philosophy. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1989.
Donagan, A. (ed.), Essays in the Philosophy of
Art.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1964.
Rubinoff, L. (ed.), Faith and Reason: Essays in thePhilosophy
of Religion. Chicago: Quadrangle, 1967.
Unpublished Manuscripts
Truth and Contradiction, ch. 2 (1917). Bodleian Library,
Dept. 16/1.
Lectures on the Ontological Proof of the Existence of God
(1919). Bodleian Library, Dept. 2.
Lectures on Moral Philosophy (1921). Bodleian Library,
Dept. 4.
Action': Lectures on Moral Philosophy (1923). Bodleian
Library, Dept. 3/1.
'Outlines of a Philosophy of History' (1928) (published in
the rev. edn. of The Idea of History).
Dept. 10.
Dept. 7.
Lectures on Moral Philosophy, (1933). Bodleian Library,
Dept. 8 (extracts published in Boucher (ed.), Essays in
Political Philosophy, 1989).
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
cxix
'Notes towards a Metaphysic' (1933). Bodleian Library,
Dept. 18/3-7 (extracts published in The Principles of
History and Other Writings in Philosophy of History).
'The Metaphysics of F. H. Bradley: An Essay on Appearance
and Reality' (1933). Bodleian Library, Dept. 29.
'The Nature of Metaphysical Study' (1934). Bodleian
Library, Dept. 18/2 (the second lecture is published in
the rev. edn. of An Essay on Metaphysics).
'Method
and Metaphysics'
(1935). Bodleian Library,
Dept. 19/3.
'Function of Metaphysics in Civilization', (1938). Bodleian
Library, Dept. 19/7 (published in rev. edn. of An Essay
on Metaphysics).
'What Civilization Means' (1939-40). Bodleian Library,
Dept. 24 (published in rev. edn. of The New Leviathan).
'The Idea of a Philosophy of Something, and, in particular, a
Philosophy of History' (1927). Bodleian Library, Dept.
14/2 (published in rev. edn. of The Idea of History).
Correspondence1
Letters to the Clarendon Press are held in the Clarendon
Press Archives, Oxford (see Johnson, 6-34).
Letters to G. de Ruggiero. Bodleian Library, Dept. 27 (see
Johnson, 51-9).
Correspondence with Gilbert Ryle, 9 May & 6 June 1935.
Bodleian Library, MS. Eng. Lett. d.194 (see Johnson,
100-1).
(B) Writing On Collingwood
Beaney, M.,
'Collingwood's
Critique of
Analytic
Philosophy', Collingwood and British Idealism Studies,
vol. 8, 2001, 99--122.
1Full details of correspondence can be found in P. Johnson,
The Correspondence of R. G. Collingwood:an Illustrated Guide.
cxx
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Boucher, D.,
The Social and
Political
Thought of
R. G. Collingwood. Cambridge University Press, 1989.
'The Principles of History
and
the
Cosmology
Conclusion to the Idea of Nature, Collingwood Studies,
vol. 2, 1995, 140-74.
'The Significance of R. G. Collingwood's Principles of
History', Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 58, no. 2,
1997, 309-30.
Connelly, J., and Modood, T (eds.), Philosophy, History
and
Civilization: Interdisciplinary
Perspectives on
R. G. Collingwood. Cardiff:
University
of Wales
Press, 1995.
Burchnall, R. A., Catalogue of the Papers of Robin George
Collingwood (1889-1943). Bodleian Library, Oxford.
Connelly, J., 'Bradley, Collingwood
and
the "Other
Metaphysics" ', Bradley Studies, vol. 3, no. 2, 1997, 89-112.
'Natural Science, History and Christianity: the Origins
of Collingwood's Later
Metaphysics', Collingwood
Studies, vol. 4, 1997, 101-32.
Metaphysics, Method and Politics: The Political Philosophy
of R. G. Collingwood.Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2003.
and Costall, A., 'R. G. Collingwood and the Idea of a
Historical Psychology', Theory and Psychology, vol. 10,
no. 2, 2000, 147-70.
D'Arcy, M. C., Review of An Essay on Philosophical Method,
The Criterion, vol. 13, 1933-4, 500-03.
D'Oro, G., Collingwood and the Metaphysics of Experience.
London: Routledge, 2002.
'Collingwood and Ryle on the Concept of Mind',
Philosophical Explorations, vol. 6, 2003, 18-30.
Donagan, A., The Later Philosophy of R. G. Collingwood.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962 (2nd edn., University of
Chicago Press, 1985).
Dreisbach, C., R. G. Collingwood: a Bibliographic Checklist.
Bowling Green, Ohio: The Philosophy Documentation
Centre, 1993.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
cxxi
Ducasse, C. J. 'Mr. Collingwood on Philosophical Method',
in Journal of Philosophy, vol. 33, 1936, 95-106.
Harris, E. E., Nature, Mind and Modern Science. London:
Allen & Unwin, 1954.
'Collingwood's
Treatment
of
the Ontological
Argument and the Categorical Universal', in Krausz
(ed.),
Critical Essays
on
the Philosophy of
R. G. Collingwood.
'Mr. Ryle and the Ontological Argument',
Mind,
vol. XLV, Oct. 1936,474-80.
Hartshorne, C., Review of An Essay on Philosophical Method,
International Journal of Ethics, vol. 44, 1934, 357-8.
Johnson, P., R. G. Collingwood: An Introduction. Bristol:
Thoemmes, 1998.
The Correspondence of R. G. Collingwood: an Illustrated
Guide. R. G. Collingwood Society, 1998.
Kant, I., Critique of Pure Reason, translated by N. K. Smith.
London: Macmillan 1929.
Knox, T M., Review of An Essay on Philosophical Method,
Oxford Magazine, 23 November 1933, 257-9.
Prefatory note to The Idea of Nature. Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1945.
Preface to The Idea of History. Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1946, v-xxiv.
Krausz, M. (ed.), Critical Essays on the Philosophy of
R. G. Collingwood. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972.
MacKinnon, D. M., Explorations in Theology, 5. London:
S.C.M., 1979.
Martin, R., 'Collingwood's Essay on Philosophical Method ',
Idealistic Studies, vol. 4, 1974, 224-50.
Mink, L., Mind, History and Dialectic. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1969.
Quine, W. V., From a Logical Point of View, 2nd edn.
New York: Harper & Row, 1963.
Ontological Relativity and Other Essays. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1969.
cxxii
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ronayne, C. F., Review of An Essay on Philosophical Method,
American Review, vol. 4, 1935, 627-33.
Rubinoff, L., Collingwood and the Reform of Metaphysics.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970.
Russell, B., The Philosophy of Logical Atomism, La Salle,
Illinois: Open Court edn., 1985 (first published in 1918
by Open Court).
Russell, L. J., Review of An Essay on Philosophical Method,
Philosophy, vol. 9, 1934, 350-2.
Ryle,
G., 'Systematically
Misleading
Expressions',
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. 32, 1931-2,
139-71 (repr. in Collected Essays, vol. 2).
'Mr. Collingwood and the Ontological Argument', Mind,
vol. 44, 1935, 137-51 (repr. in Collected Essays, vol. 2).
'Back to the Ontological Argument', Mind, vol. 46,
1937, 53-57 (repr. in Collected Essays, vol. 2).
'Taking Sides in Philosophy', Philosophy, vol. 12,1937,
317-32 (repr. in Collected Essays, vol. 2).
'Philosophical
Arguments',
Oxford:
Clarendon
Press, 1945 (repr. in Collected Essays, vol. 2).
Autobiographical', in O. P. Wood and G. Pitcher (eds.),
Ryle: A
Collection of
Critical Essays. London:
Macmillan, 1970.
Collected Essays, two volumes. London: Hutchinson, 1971.
Schiller, F. C. S., Review of An Essay on Philosophical
Method, Mind, vol. 43, 1934, 117-20.
Stebbing, L. S., Review of Speculum Mentis, Hibbert Journal,
vol. 28, 566-9.
'The Method of Analysis in Metaphysics', Proceedings
of the Aristotelian Society, 1932-3, 65-94.
Stock, G., 'Collingwood's Essay on Appearance and Reality:
some Contemporary Reflections', Collingwood Studies,
vol. 4, 1998, 34-50.
Vrijen, C., 'Ryle and Collingwood: Their Correspondence
and its Philosophical Context', British Journal for the
History of Philosophy, forthcoming.
AN ESSAY ON PHILOSOPHICAL
METHOD
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CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION
I. THE PROBLEM
1. Philosophy must raise the question what philosophy is .
I
2. Three suggested ways of approaching this question
.
2
3. The way to be followed here: an account of philosophical
method
.
.
.
.
.
.3
4. Importance of this subject at the present time .
.
4
2. THEMETHOD
5. Necessity of restricting the subject under discussion .
6. Significanceof the comparison between philosophical and
scientific thought
.
.
.
.
3. HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS
7. Socrates
.
8 . Plato .
.
9. Descartes
.
10. Kant .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
7
9
.10
. 1 1
.16
.19
II. THE OVERLAP OF CLASSES

I. THETHEORY OF CLASSIFICATION IN FORMAL LOGIC
1. The traditional theory ofclassification .
.
2. Its application in exact (mathematical) science .
3. Itsapplication inempirical science
.
.
2. THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF APPLYING IT RIGIDLY TO PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS
4. Specific classes here overlap one another
5. This fact long recognized in certain cases
6. The case of concepts having a philosophical and
philosophical phase .
.
.
7. The overlap ofclasses in logic .
.
8. The overlap of classes in ethics
.
9. Significance of these facts: the reader invited
their genuineness for the sake of argument .
.26
. 29
.30
31
. 32
a non.
33
.
.36
.41
to admit
. 43
cxxvi
CONTENTS
3. CONSEQUENCES FORPHILOSOPHICAL METHOD
10. Methods proper to science (exact or empirical) inapplicable in philosophy, owing to the overlap of classes
. 46
11. Thefallacy ofprecarious margins
.
.
.47
12. Thefallacy ofidentified coincidents
.
.
.48
13. Their common ground: the fallacy of false disjunction .
49
14. The first rule of philosophicalmethod: ?<m /tei* TOO.VTO...
'A distinction without a difference' .
.
.49
15. Corollaries of this rule. (a) The object of philosophical
thought cannot be a classificatorysystem
.
. 50
16. (6) Nor yet an aggregate, i.e. a whole of separable parts . 51
17. These corollaries to be understood only as warnings
against unadvisedly assuming the opposite
.
. 52
III. THE SCALE OF FORMS
I. PRELIMINARY SKETCH OFTHE IDEA
1. The species of a philosophical genus do not differ merely
in degree
.
.
.
.
.
54
2. Normerely in kind
.
.
.
.
55
3. Philosophy is interested in cases where these two are
combined
.
.
.
.
.
56
4. The scale of forms: its place in the history of philosophy
57
5. Such scales occur both in philosophy and elsewhere
. 59
6. But in a philosophical scale of forms the variable is
identical with the generic essence
.
.
.60
2. TWO DIFFICULTIES
7. (i) This identification seems nonsensical
.
.
8. (ii) The scale, as hitherto described, accounts only for an
overlap between opposites, not distincts
.
.
9. It would follow that philosophical specification is by
opposition, non-philosophical by distinction .
.
10. Consequences of this. It disintegrates a philosophical
scale of forms, requiring us to jettison all intermediate
terms and keep only theextremes
.
.
11. It requires us to jettison all distinctions between one
philosophical concept and another
.
.
12. It disintegrates a non-philosophical scale of forms, and
claims its extremes for philosophy
.
.
13. Finally it leads to a fatal dilemma concerning the relation
between opposition and distinction
.
.
61
63
64
.65
.66
67
.68
CONTENTS
cxxvii
3. DEGREE ANDKIND: OPPOSITION ANDDISTINCTION
14. In philosophy there are differences of degree, but we cannotmeasure them
.
.
.
.
.69
15. This is because they are fused in a peculiar way with
differences of kind .
.
.
.
71
16. Such a fusion follows from the principle of overlapping
classes
.
.
.
.
.
.74
17. There is a similar fusion of opposition and distinction . 74
18. This also follows from the overlap of classes
.
. 76
19. Summary: in philosophy there is a fusion (a) of differences
in degree with differences in kind, (6) of relations of
opposition with relations of distinction
.
. 76
4. DEGREE AND KIND IN THE SCALE OF FORMS
20. The fusion of degree and kind removes the first of the two
difficulties (2. 7) .
.
.
.
21. Example of beauty
.
.
.
.
22. Example of goodness

.
23. Example of pleasure

.
.
.
.
24. The fallacy of calculation and the fallacy of equivalence .
77
77
78
79
80
5. OPPOSITION AND DISTINCTION IN THE SCALE OF FORMS

25. The scale begins not with zero, but with unity .
. 81
26. i.e. with a minimum realization of the generic essence
. 82
27. Relatively to higher terms, this is a negation of that
essence
.
.
.
.
.
.82
28. The same relation subsists between any two adjacent terms
in the scale .
.
.
.
.
.84
29. The fallacy of the false positive and the fallacy of null
opposition
.
.
.
.
.
85
6. THE SCALE OF FORMS AND THE OVERLAP OF CLASSES
30. Each term surpasses the next below, not only generically
but specifically
.
.
.
.
.86
31. It therefore sums up the whole scale to that point
. 89
32. Thus it both negates and reaffirms the next below, and
this explains the overlap of classes .
.
90
33. And makes the conception of overlap more precise
. 91
IV. DEFINITION AND DESCRIPTION
1. The view that philosophical concepts are definable. Its
difficulties .
.
.
.
.
.92
2. Theview that they arenot. Its dangers
.
. 92
cxxviii
CONTENTS
3. In exact science, definition implies (a) separation of essence
(expounded in definitions) from properties (expounded
in theorems) .
.
.
.
.
4. In philosophy this isimpossible; here therefore the definition of a concept is coextensive with its entire exposition
5. (6) An absolute difference between knowing the essence
of a concept andnotknowing it
.
6. This too is impossible in philosophy, where coming to
know means coming to know better .
.
7. The traditional rules of definition must therefore be
modified in the case of philosophical definition
.
8. Description of an empirical concept. Its likeness and unlikeness tophilosophical definition
.
.
9. The principles of philosophical definition. Illustrations
from Plato and Aristotle
.
.
.
.
1 0 . Illustration from Kant .
.
.
. .
V. THE PHILOSOPHICAL JUDGEMENT:
QUALITY AND QUANTITY
1 .Division o f t h e subject .
I. AFFIRMATION ANDDENIAL
2. In philosophy we cannot deny without making a corresponding affirmation .
.
.
3. Proof of the principle of concrete negation
4. Fallacy of abstract negation
.
.
5. Fallacy ofabstract affirmation
.
.
6. Proof of the principle of concrete affirmation
7. Applications oftheprinciple
.
.
8. Thetwoprinciples combined
.
.
.94
95
.96
.96
98
.98
1 0 0
1 0 2
1 0 4
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
1 0 4
1 0 5
1 0 6
1 0 6
1 0 7
1 0 8
.110
2. THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL JUDGEMENT

9. There are three elements in all universal judgements
. 111
10. There are three types of thought according as one or other
takes precedence of the rest .
.
.
.111
11. In philosophy each type by itself is fallacious
.
.113
12. In a philosophical judgement all three forms of structure
coexist
.
.
.
.
.
. 1 1 5
VI. PHILOSOPHY AS CATEGORICAL THINKING
I. PRELIMINARY STATEMENT OF THE PRINCIPLE
1. The judgements composing the body of mathematics are
hypothetical .
.
.
.
.
117
CONTENTS
2. Soarethose ofempirical science
.
.
3. But in philosophy the body of knowledge consists of
judgements about a subject-matter conceived as real
(i.e. categorical judgements) .
.
.
.
2. THE EVIDENCE OF TRADITIONAL PHILOSOPHY
4. Quotations from philosophers expressing their recognition
of the principle
.
.
.
.
5. The Ontological Proof, its origin and history
.
6. Its significance. The object of philosophical thought cannot be conceived except asexisting
.
.
7. The principle further supported by examination (a) of
logic
.
.
.
.
.
.
8. (6)Ofmoral philosophy
.
.
.
cxxix
.118
1 2 1
. 1 2 3
. 1 2 4
. 1 2 6
1 2 8
131
3. FINAL STATEMENT AND PROOF OF THE PRINCIPLE

9. Conclusion from the evidence cited: the body of philosophical thought is essentially categorical, though it
contains hypothetical elements
.
.
133
10. Proof of this from the principle of overlapping classes . 134
11. Exclusion of further problems .
.
.
135
VII. TWO SCEPTICAL POSITIONS
1. Scepticism as to whether a philosophical proposition can
be established by constructive reasoning
.
137
I. CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY
2. Philosophy as the critical destruction of false views without asserting or implying true ones
.
.
. 1 3 8
3. This induces a superficial, because merely formal, valuation oftheviews criticized
.
.
.
139
4. It implies constructive doctrines on which its work is
based, but neglects to formulate them
.
. 140
2. ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY
5. Philosophy as the analysis of propositions drawn from
non-philosophical sources
. .
.
.
1 4 1
6. Analysis of this philosophy into three parts, only one of
which is indubitably philosophical
.
.
. 142
7. This, however, it neglects towork out .
.
. 145
8. Butis not entitled to take it for granted
.
. 1 4 6
9. Both these philosophies share the fault that they assume
constructive doctrines while professing not to do so . 147
10. Both are inconsistent with the first principles of philosophical method as laid down in this essay
.
147
cxxx
CONTENTS
VIII. DEDUCTION AND INDUCTION
I. THEIDEA OF DEDUCTIVE DEMONSTRATION
1. Demonstration in exact science .
.
.
151
2. It implies (a) logical principles external to the science,
(6) principles belonging to the science itself .
. 1 5 1
3. It never checks or criticizes, and cannot confirm, these
principles, i.e. it is irreversible in direction .
. 153
2. PHILOSOPHY DOES NOT CONFORM TO THAT IDEA
4. The distinction between two kinds of principles disappears 154
5. Is its direction irreversible?
.
.
.
. 155
6. In spite of his theory, Descartes in practice realized that it
i s n o t
.
.
.
.
.
. 1 5 5
7 . S o d i d Spinoza a n d Leibniz
.
.
.
. 158
8. Therefore Hegel's demand that philosophy should justify
its starting-point is notnew .
.
.
. 1 5 9
3. PHILOSOPHY ANDITS STARTING-POINT
9. Does this imply a vicious circle?
.
.
. 160
10. No, because its aim is not to create knowledge e nihilo . 161
11. The demonstrandum is something which we in some sense
already know
.
.
.
.
. 1 6 2
12. Our demonstration is verified by appeal to this previous
knowledge, and this serves to check the starting-point
o f t h e argument
.
.
.
.
. 1 6 3
4. PHILOSOPHY ANDINDUCTION
13. Induction inempirical science .
. 1 6 4
14. Its two kinds of principles, and its irreversibility
. 166
15. In philosophy our initial knowledge differs in three ways
from the data of inductive thought
.
.
. 1 6 7
16. The process to which the data are subjected is different in
t h e t w o cases
.
.
.
.
. 1 6 9
17. The result of the process is different
.
.
. 170
5. PHILOSOPHY ANDEXPERIENCE
18. The continuity ofphilosophy with the experience in which
i t begins
.
.
.
.
.
. 1 7 0
19. This implies their homogeneity.
.
.
. 1 7 1
20. They are related as terms in a scale of forms
.
. 1 7 2
21. Philosophical theory and philosophical experience
. 173
2 2 . Summary a n d conclusion
.
.
. .
1 7 3
CONTENTS
cxxxi
IX. THE IDEA OF SYSTEM
I. OBJECTIONS AND REPLIES
1. Reasons for the common prejudice against system
. 176
2. This prejudiceas the expression of a legitimate demand . 178
3. (a) Nosystem can befinal
.
.
.
. 1
4. (6) No single philosopher can do all the work required to
construct a system
.
.
.
.
. 1 8
5. (c) Anysystem is merely personal
.
.
. 1 8
6. (d) Any system does violence to the diversity of philosophical problems
.
.
.
.
. 1 8
7 9
1
2
4
2. EXPOSITION OF THE IDEA

7. The idea of system is indispensable to philosophy
. 185
8. The divisions of its subject-matter form overlapping
classes
.
.
.
.
.
. 1 8 8
9. And fall into a scale of forms. Systematic philosophy as
a scale o f philosophies
.
.
.
.
1 8 9
10. This conception clears up the difficulties stated in I . 190
3. EXAMPLES OF ITS PARTIAL REALIZATION
11. The idea constantly tends to realize itself: e.g. .
. 193
12. (a) In the relation between the philosophical sciences . 194
13. (6) In the history of philosophy
.
.
. 1 9 4
14. (c) In the philosophy of a single age
.
.
. 195
15. (d) In the philosophy of a single man .
.
197
X. PHILOSOPHY AS A BRANCH OF LITERATURE
I. PROSE ANDPOETRY
1. The two elements inprose
.
.
.
- 1 9 9
2. The relation between them
.
.
.
199
3. Inpoetry there is only one
.
.
.
.
200
4. Prose is poetry with a difference
.
.
. 200
5 .Prose a n d verse
. .
.
.
.
2 0 1
2. PHILOSOPHICAL PROSE AND SCIENTIFIC PROSE
6. Technical terms are sought in science and avoided in
philosophy .
.
.
.
.
. 2 0 1
7. What they are. Symbolism and language
.
203
8. Whythey are needed in science and not in philosophy . 205
9. The needs of philosophy can only be met by ordinary
(literary ornon-technical) language .
.
. 206
cxxxii
CONTENTS
3. PHILOSOPHICAL STYLE ANDHISTORICAL STYLE
1 0 . Historical style i s didactic
.
.
.
11. Philosophical style is the opposite
.
.
12. We 'consult' historians, but 'follow' philosophers
. 208
. 209
. 211
4. PHILOSOPHY ANDPOETRY
13. They are alike in the intimate relation between writer and
reader
.
.
.
.
.
. 2 1 2
14. Philosophy as the point at which prose comes nearest to
being poetry.
.
.
.
.
. 2 1 3
15. The philosopher uses language as the poets use it, but
what hewrites must beprose
.
.
. 2 1 3
5. THE READER'S RELATION TO THE WRITER
16. (a) As understanding him. The reader must (i) read
philosophy aspure literature .
.
.
. 2 1 5
17. (ii) Come to it prepared for the special philosophical
problem ofthat special work .
.
.
. 215
18. (b) As criticizing him. This is necessary to comprehension, butlogically posterior to it
.
.
. 2 1 7
19. It hasa positive anda negative side
.
.
. 2 1 8
2 0 . T h e critic a s pupil
.
.
.
.
. 219
XL CONCLUSION
1. Does the view hitherto stated agree with experience?
. 221
2. This question has been already asked piecemeal as the
argument proceeded. Justification of this method
. 222
3. Whose experience? That of all philosophers, ourselves
included
.
.
.
.
.
. 2 2 3
4. Does this notrest on an unproved assumption ?.
. 224
5. If it is an assumption, it is one of those assumptions
which arenot only legitimate but obligatory .
. 225
INDEX
357
I
INTRODUCTION
1
1. THERE are some things which we can do without
understanding what we are doing; not only things
which we do with our bodies, like locomotion and
digestion, but even things which we do with our
minds, like making a poem or recognizing a face.
But when that whichwe do is in the nature of thinking, it begins to be desirable, if we are to do it well,
that we should understand what we are trying to do.
Scientific and historical thought could never go very
far unless scientists and historians reflected on their
own work, tried to understand what they were aiming at, and asked themselves how best to attain it.
Most of all, this is true of philosophy. It is possible
to raise and solve philosophical problems with no
very clear idea of what philosophy is, what it is
trying to do, and how it can best do it; but no great
progress can be made until these questions have been
asked and some answer to them given.
Philosophy, moreover, has this peculiarity, that
reflection upon it is part of itself. The theory of
poetry may or may not be of service to a poetopinions on that question have differed--but it is
no part of poetry. The theory of science and the
theory of history are not parts of science and of history ; if scientists and historians study these things,
they study them not in their capacity as scientists
4033
B
2
INTRODUCTION
or historians, but in their capacity as philosophers.
But the theory of philosophy is itself a problem for
philosophy; and not only a possible problem, but
an inevitable problem, one which sooner or later it
is bound to raise.
For these two reasons, both because it is among
his proper subjects of study and because without it
his chance of success in his other subjects is diminished, the philosopher is under an obligation to
study the nature of philosophy itself. Towards that
study the present essay isintended as a contribution ;
its primary purpose being to consider the question
what philosophy is.
2. There are various lines by which that question
might be approached. One of these would depend
upon the relation between an object and the thought
of it. Any special science, we might argue, must
have something special to study, and whatever peculiarities it presents in aim and method must be due
to peculiarities in its object; from this point of
view it would appear that the most hopeful way of
approaching our question is first to define the proper
object of philosophical thought, and then to deduce
from this definition the proper methods it should
follow. But this line of approach would offer no
hope of success except to a person convinced that
he already possessed an adequate conception of this
object; convinced, that is, that his philosophical
thought had already reached its goal. To me at least,
therefore, this path is closed; for though I believe
that certain ways of philosophizing are more fruitful
INTRODUCTION
3
than others, I know of no philosophy that is not a
voyage of explorationwhose end, the adequate knowledge of its proper object, remains as yet unreached.
A second way, which might be open even if the
first were closed, depends on the relation between
means and end. We might ask what kind of results
philosophy hopes or desires to achieve ; and, having
thus laid down its programme, consider what means
can be found of realizing it. But although every
philosopher has some idea of what he hopes to
achieve, this idea varies from person to person and
in the same person from time to time; nor could it
be otherwise,for any progress in thought must bring
with it a certain change in the conception of its own
end, the goal of one stage being the starting-point
of the next. If I followed this method, therefore, I
could not hope or even desire to command the assent
of my readers, or even my own assent hereafter.
3. There remains a third line of approach. Philosophy never with any of us reaches its ultimate goal;
and with its temporary gains it never rests content;
e pur si muove: it is an activity which goes on in our
minds, and we are able to distinguish it from among
others, and to recognize it by certain peculiar marks.
These markscharacterize it as an activity or process ;
they are, therefore, peculiarities of procedure; and
accordingly it is possible to answer the question
what philosophy is by giving an account of philosophical method.
This suggests taking philosophical thought as a
special kind of fact, scrutinizing it, and describing
4
INTRODUCTION
the procedure which it is found to exhibit. But that
would not be enough. The question what philosophy
is, cannot be separated from the question what
philosophy ought to be. When wedistinguish philosophy from the other activities of our minds, we do
not think of it as something that merely happens
in us like the circulation of the blood; we think of
it as something we try to do, an activity which we
are trying to bring into conformity with an idea
of what it ought to be. Consequently, when we set
out to give an account of philosophical method, what
we are trying to describe is not so much a method
actually followed by ourselves or any one else, as
a method which in our philosophical work we are
trying to follow, even if we never entirely succeed.
Hence an account of philosophical method must
attempt to satisfy two conditions. First, to avoid
a kind of philosophical utopianism, it must keep in
touch with facts, and never lose sight of the question
what methods have actually been used by philosophers of the past. Secondly, to avoid replacing a
philosophical question by an historical one, it must
treat all such precedents as mere preliminaries to
the main question: the final appeal must be to our
own experience of philosophical work, and to our
consciousness that when we are engaged in it
these are the principles which we are trying to
follow.
4. The problem of method is one which has exercised philosophers from the earliest times; but there
are reasons for thinking it a problem of peculiar
INTRODUCTION
5
importance to-dayi Since the close of the Middle
Ages there have been two great constructive movements in philosophy : the Cartesian, following upon
the scepticism that dissolved the medieval systems
of thought, and the Kantian, following upon the
scepticism of the eighteenth century. Each was
marked by a general agreement, such as must always
exist in any period ofachievement and progress, concerning the principles of method; and each was
opened, and its main principles were laid down, by
a methodological treatise. The movement of the
seventeenth century is called Cartesian because its
constitution and code of law were given to it by
Descartes in the Discours de la Me'thode; that of the
late eighteenth and early nineteenth century stands
in a similar relation to the Critique of PureReason.
The Kantian movement, as a philosophical movement, had worked itself out within fifty years from
the publication of the Critique, and its influence
passed into the sphere of historical and humanistic
studies, as that of the Cartesian had passed into the
sphere of natural science. Throughout the greater
part of the nineteenth century, the attention of active
minds was chiefly taken up by these two branches
of knowledge, science and history; there seemed
nothing left for philosophy to do, and it sank into
complete neglect, except as an appendage of natural
science or as a part of history. Late in the century
a few men appeared in whom once more philosophy
found its proper shape as a distinct and living form
of thought. These men heralded the dawn of a new
6
INTRODUCTION
generation, that in which we now live, for which
philosophy is among the universal interests of the
mind. The ferment of a new growth is at work. In
the quantity and quality of the philosophical books
now issuing from the press of this country alone,
our time canbear comparison with any other; judged
by the number of writers, the seriousness of their
aims, and their resolution in exploring new ways of
thought, this generation has already reached a level
in philosophical work which no one could have
anticipated fifty years ago, and seems to promise a
further advance which may even lead to a new constructive movement.
But in order that this promise should be redeemed,
one thing is needed above all others: a patient and
thorough reconsideration of the problem of method.
The present is a time of crisis and chaos in philosophy. The exceptional difficulty which modern
philosophers find in accepting each other's conclusions, and even in understanding each other's arguments, is a necessary consequence of their failure to
agree upon principles of method, or even to find out
exactly how they differ; this only is clear, that the
old methods are no longer followed, and every one
is free to invent a new one of his own. This is a
state of things natural and proper to an age when
new movements are in the making; but if it lasts
too long discouragement and indifference will take
the place of enterprise, and the new movement will
be rotten before it is ripe.
There is a widespread interest in the problem of
INTRODUCTION
7
method; but it has not yet been directly faced as
a distinct problem, as Descartes faced it in the Discours or Kant in the Critique. Consequently philosophers of all schools are still in varying degrees,
however little they may recognize it, under the
domination of methodological ideas inherited from
the nineteenth century, when philosophy was in
various ways assimilated to the pattern of empirical
science. If the state of philosophy at present is
chaotic, that isbecause the rubbish left on the ground
by the decayed systems of the last century is an
impediment to sight and an obstacle to progress.
The aim of this essay is to clear some of this rubbish from the ground, or at least to call attention
to the need of doing so and invite others to go on
with the work. To those who are busy constructing
systems of their own, an invitation to take part in
such elementary and menial work may seem an impertinence ; but at least it betokens a conviction that
beneath the apparent chaos there isunity of purpose
and spirit, and that beyond the present crisis the
future of philosophy is full of hope.
2
5. The different parts of philosophy are so related among themselves that none of them can be
discussed without raising problems belonging to
the rest. The subject of this essay is the nature of
philosophy; and it would be both easy and agreeable to expand this subject so asto include the place
of philosophy among the other forms of thought,
8
INTRODUCTION
the place of thought among the other activities of
the mind, and the relation of mind to the world.
There are two reasons against yielding to this
temptation. First, as a matter of principle : if the
discussion of a special problem is allowed to expand
until it becomes a discussion of the most general
problems, no special problem will ever receive adequate attention; whatever question is raised will
come to be regarded merely as a variant of the one
ultimate question, and its special features will be
neglected. The result will be a philosophy where all
distinctions are swallowed up in a blank and colourless unity; a result no less fatal to the unity than to
the distinctions, because the unity, which ought to
be the articulated unity of an ordered system, has
now become a mere undifferentiated chaos.
Secondly, as a matter of expediency. The purpose
of this book is to call attention to a certain problem.
There are plenty of books on the market in which
the general problems of philosophy are ably and
attractively dealt with, and I should hesitate to add
to them; but there does seem to be a place for an
essay on philosophical method; and the utility of
such an essay can onlybe impaired if it expands into
a general philosophical treatise.
For these reasons, though no doubt the thoughts
here expressed have implications in metaphysics,
logic, and the theory of knowledge, these implications will not be discussed. The reader will find
that, in order to bring into relief the special characteristics of philosophy, it is constantly compared and
INTRODUCTION
9
contrasted with science, and in particular with two
kinds of science, empirical and exact. He will also
findreferences to history and to poetry. But he will
findno sketch, however brief, of a generalscheme in
which poetry, history, science, and philosophy have
each its own place.
6. Another warning is due to the reader at this
point. I have illustrated the idea of exact science
from elementary mathematics,and the idea of empirical science from zoology,botany, and other natural
sciences. Perhaps a mathematician, if I am fortunate enough to number mathematicians among my
readers, may say to me: 'Your account of the method
used in exact science is altogether beside the mark;
modern mathematical theory has changed all that,
and you are tilting at a man of straw.' If so, I shall
reply that my contentions, so far from being invalidated, are confirmed in preciselythat quarter where
confirmation is most welcome. For what I am discussing, when I distinguish philosophical method
from that of exact science, is not mathematics itself
but a certain method, often mistakenlyused in philosophy, which is believed to be that of mathematics.
Even if it is right in mathematics I believe it to be
wrong in philosophy ; but my attempt to combat it
as a philosophical method may, I fear, be opposed
by the reply: 'This method is sobrilliantlysuccessful
in mathematics that philosophy cannot dowrong to
imitate it.' That is an argument, I contend, in which
the conclusion does not follow from the premiss;
but my objection to it is only strengthened if the
4033
C
io
INTRODUCTION
premiss is pronounced untrue. A corresponding
answer would apply to a .scientist who objected to
my account of inductive science.
3
The scope of this essay does not require that it
should be prefaced by even the briefest history of
its problem ; but it will be of service to consider a
few points in that history, as especially instructive
for my purpose. I propose to take four philosophers,
Socrates, Plato, Descartes, and Kant, and to discuss
their contributions to the theory of philosophical
method; not asking what methods they actually
used in their work, which is an entirely distinct
question, but only what methods they explicitly
claimed to be using or recommended for the use of
others.
7. The central position in the history of Greek
philosophy occupied by Socrates was undoubtedly
connected with his contributions to method. The
very existence of the word dialectic, which from his
time down to the present dayhas stood for an important group of methodological conceptions, owes its
origin to his technique in philosophical discussion ;
and when Aristotle asked himself what contribution
Socrates had made to philosophy, he answered in
terms implying that, in his opinion, Socrates was
essentially the inventor of a method.
Socrates stated his own theory of his invention
by saying that knowledge was to be sought within
the mind, and brought to birth by a process of
INTRODUCTION
n
questioning. The contrast here insisted upon is the
contrast between perceiving (al'crflijo-ts), regarded as
the observation of things outside oneself, and thinking (vorjais),regarded as the discovery of what is
within. Socrates showed that this second activity
was common to two kinds of inquiry, which he does
not seem to have distinguished in his theory of
method: mathematics and ethics. His revolt against
the study of nature was essentially a revolt against
observation in favour of thought; and whereas
mathematical method, as an example of thought,
had already been discovered by his predecessors,
his own discovery was that a similar method, for
which he invented an appropriate technique, could
be applied to ethical questions. This technique,
as he himself recognized, depended on a principle
which is of great importance to any theory of
philosophical method: the principle that in a philosophical inquiry what we are trying to do is not to
discover something of which until now we have been
ignorant, but to know better something which in
some sense we knew already ; not to know it better
in the sense of coming to know more about it, but
to know it better in the sense of coming to know it
in a different and better way--actually instead of
potentially, or explicitly instead of implicitly, or in
whatever terms the theory of knowledgechooses to
express the difference: the difference itself has been
a familiar fact ever since Socrates pointed it out.
8. It is true that philosophical thought resembles
mathematical in the manner asserted by Socrates ;
iz
INTRODUCTION
each is essentially not a way of observing facts, but
a way of thinking. But a closer comparison between
the method ofmathematics and his own new method
of dialectic would have shown him that, though similar up to a point, beyond that point they differ in an
important way; and the evidence before us suggests
that Socrates himself did not explicitlyrecognize this
difference. Nothing is said about it in any writing
earlier than Plato's Republic, where it is developed
with unwonted explicitness in a well-known passage
at the end of the sixth book; there is nothing about
it in the Phaedo,where the intellectual autobiography
of Socrates not only permits but one might almost
say demands a reference to it, had such an important conception been Socratic in origin. Without
dogmatizing, therefore, I propose to regard this
doctrine as a Platonic development of the conceptions inherited from Socrates.
The passage in question is that in which a line is
divided into four parts so that a:b ::c : d:: a +b:
c +d. Here a +band c+ d are the worlds of thought
(TO. vor)Ta) and perception (here called ra opara), whose
relation has been expounded in the Phaedo ; so far
we are doubtless on familiar Socratic ground. What
Plato now wishes to point out is that a similar relation exists within the world ofthought,between two
orders of objects and two forms of thought corresponding to them, these forms of thought being
dialectic and mathematics.
Whatever may be the unsolved obscurities of this
famous passage, one thing is clear: that it expresses
INTRODUCTION
a view according to which dialectic and mathematics
differ in method. The difference is stated by saying
that in mathematics the mind 'goes from hypotheses
not to a principle but to a conclusion', whereas in
dialectic it 'goes from hypotheses to a non-hypothetical principle'; and this is further explained by
saying that geometricians posit triangles and so forth
as hypotheses, and admit no argument about them,
but proceed on this basis to demonstrate their conclusions ; whereas in dialectic we use hypotheses not
as principles, but as the hypotheses which they are,
employing them as stepping-stones to reach something which is not an hypothesis but the principle
of everything.1
Mathematicsand dialectic are so far alikethat each
begins with an hypothesis: 'Let so-and-so be assumed.' But in mathematics the hypothesis forms
a barrier to all further thought in that direction: the
rules of mathematical method do not allowus to ask
'Is this assumption true ? Let us see what would
follow if it were not.' Hence mathematics, although
intellectual, is not intellectual doutrance; it is away
of thinking, but it is also a way of refusing to think.
13
1 Rep. 509D seqq. The passages paraphrased are : ûx1? fijreir

dva-yKa^fTai li; imodearfatv, OVK en-' apxty Tropevopevr], dXX'
e-irl
TeXevTiqv, TO 8' a.5 erepov err" apxty dvVTToOeTov e inroOearecas
iowa (510 B). vTTodffj.evoi. TO Te TrepiTTov Kal TOdpriov KrX. . . .
ovoeva Xoyov oii're auroi? otire aAAot? eVt aiovai Trepl avTwv
Stoovai to? TravTi (fiavepcav, eK TOVTCOV o' apxop-fvoi TO. Xoiira 17877
SieflovTes TeXevTOKJiv 6fj.o\oyov^4vias eirt TOVTO oS av f-rrl aKi[iiv
opurjataaiv (510 C-D). TO.S viroOeaeis TTOiOVêvos OVK dpxds, dXXa
TU> OVTI imodeaeis, oTov einpdaeis re Kal oppds, iva fteXP'
Tv
avvrrodeTov tiri TT\V TOV TTCLVTOS dpx'fjvliav KrA. (5H )B
14
INTRODUCTION
In dialectic we not only draw the consequences of
our hypotheses, but we recollect that they are only
hypotheses; that is, we are free to 'cancel the hypothesis',1 or assume the opposite and seewhat follows
from that. The purpose of this procedure is no
doubt the same as that of Socrates' midwifery, to
bring to light that knowledge which the mind
already possesses concealed within it; and this is
now defined as knowledge of a metaphysical first
principle called the good.
Plato explicitly tells us in his Epistles (ii, vii) that
he has never committed this knowledge to paper.
But we do possess, in his dialogues, an unequalled
series of studies in philosophical method,2 from
which it is easy to gather what exactly he meant
by dialectic. The Parmenides may be taken as an
example. Discounting the long introduction, the
body of the dialogue comprises a series of sections
each devoted to working out the implications of one
metaphysical hypothesis, the subject-matter of these
hypotheses being borrowed from the Parmenidean
philosophy. The first hypothesis is that the One
1 Rep. 533C : rdy imoBeaeis avaipovcra.
2 Recent work on Plato, notably that of Professor A. E. Taylor
and the late Professor Burnet, has made it impossible any longer
to regard the dialogues as essentially statements of a philosophical
position or series of positions; but the same authors' attempt to
explain them as essentially studies in the history of thought does
not to me at least carry conviction. Whatever else they may be,
it seems clear that they were intended as models for the conduct
of philosophical discussion, or essays in method. I am not sure
whether or no I had the first suggestion of this idea, many years
ago, from the conversation of Professor J. A. Smith.
INTRODUCTION
15
is not many; the second, that the One exists ; the
third, that it is not one; the fourth, that it does not
exist. Here each hypothesis is 'cancelled' in turn;
thought pursues every path which it can discover,
in whatever direction it leads.
Plato's contribution to the theory ofphilosophical
method, then, or at any rate that contribution which
for my present purpose may be credited to Plato, is
the conception of philosophy as the one sphere in
which thought moves with perfect freedom, bound
by no limitations except those which it imposes upon
itself for the duration of a single argument. Consequently thought, whose nature is exemplified imperfectly in the ideal of mathematics, is perfectly
exemplified in that of philosophy; any one who
thinks, and is determined to let nothing stop him
from thinking, is a philosopher, and hence Plato is
able to say that philosophy (SiaAeK-rt/o)) is the same as
thought (vorjms).
This is a conception of the highest importance,
and fertile in good results for the theory and practice both of philosophy and of exact science, as
the history of both abundantly demonstrates. But
considered (as it must be for the purposes of this
essay) merely as a conception of philosophy, it has
two defects, or perhaps a single defect which may
conveniently be stated in two ways. First, it is
merely negative. It distinguishes philosophy from
mathematics only by the removal of a restriction,
with the result that philosophy is represented as a
form of thought substantially akin to mathematics
16
INTRODUCTION
and differing only in its range. Secondly, it is never
made clear how this exhaustive canvassing of every
possible hypothesis can lead to the discovery of the
metaphysical first principle. If mathematicalreasoning cannot do this, why should reasoning of the same
kind do it when merely widened in scope ? Plato
may assure us, and we may agree, that the desired
result does in practice follow; but we are investigating, not his actual achievements in philosophy,
but his expressed theory of the method by which
they were won; and in terms of that theory there
is an evident gap between the idea of the means and
the idea of the end.
However highly Plato's philosophical achievements are rated, and to rate them at any value
short of the highest would be to confess oneself no
philosopher, his theory of method must be admitted
defective through failure to drive deep enough the
distinction established by himself between philosophy and mathematics. The result is that his
methodology splits philosophy into two parts: one
an arid waste of ingenious logic-chopping, the other
an intuitive vision of ultimate reality. That the first
is in fact a pathway to the second may be vouched
for by the experience of many generations that have
taken Plato for their guide ; but even if it is, we are
here engaged on a philosophical quest, in search
not of facts to be accepted on authority but of
conceptions in whose light the facts may be understood ; and these Plato has not given us.
9. In their character as men, there was little
INTRODUCTION
i?
resemblance between Socrates and Descartes ; yet
there isa remarkable analogy between their positions
in the history of ancient and modern thought. Each
closed a period of division and doubt, and initiated
oneofbrilliantconstructiveprogress,by the discovery
of a method; each was driven to this discovery by
a thorough study of what passed for knowledge in
his own day and a resulting sense of his own ignorance ; each in consequence resolved to distinguish
observation from thought, and to make a new beginning by looking for truth within himself; and each
found the clue to his new method in the principles
of mathematics.1
Socrates had found in mathematics a model for
dialectical reasoning; Descartes, disgusted with the
dialectic of the schools, went back to the same model,
and described the lessons he learnt there under four
heads : the canons of evidence, division, order, and
exhaustion. Nothing was to be assented to, unless
evidentlyknownto be true; every subject-matterwas
to be divided into the smallest possible parts, each
to be dealt with separately; each part wasto be considered in its right order, the simplest first; and no
part was to be omitted in reviewing the whole.1
It was from the study of mathematics that Descartes learnt these rules, and it was to the advancement of mathematics that he first applied them; but
he hoped from the first that they would prove useful
in a far wider sphere, and by degrees he applied
4033
1 Discours de la Methode, premierepartie.

* Ibid., deuxieme partie.
D
:8
INTRODUCTION
them to the wholefieldof knowledge as he conceived
it: that is, not only to mathematics but to metaphysics and the sciences of nature; for divinity he
ruled out as a matter of faith, poetry he considered
a gift rather than a fruit of study, and history he
regarded as a pastime full of interest and not devoid
of profit, but very far from the dignity or utility of
a science.1
Whatever may have been the method actuallyused
by Descartes in his philosophical inquiries--that, I
repeat,isanother question--it isclearthat the method
which in this critical pronouncement he claimed to
be using was at all points identical with that which
he used in mathematics. He admits only one method
for all three branches of science; the problem of a
special method appropriate to philosophy is one
which he has not raised.
The philosophers who, in spite of his own modest
disclaimer, treated his Discours as a system of precepts, found them highly profitable. Especially at a
time like his, when philosophical doctrines had been
reduced by probabilism to mere matters of opinion,
nothing but good could come of insisting that they
must be either based on solid argument or abandoned
as indefensible conjectures. Hardly less beneficial
was Descartes's second rule, that difficulties must be
divided up and their elements considered separately,
when this rule was taken in conjunction with the
third, that they must be considered in their right
order, and the fourth, that no element must be
1Discours de la Methode, premiere partie, deuxieme partie.
INTRODUCTION
19
omitted. The magnificentphilosophical work done
in the seventeenth century was due not so much to
its being a century of genius--car ce n'est pas assez
d'avoir Vesprit bon,mais le principal est de Vappliquer
Men--as to its being a century in which the Cartesian
rules of method were attentively observed.
Yet, asboth Descartes and his successors verywell
knew, philosophy and mathematics are, even in
method, not at all points identical; and accordingly
the benefits that philosophy can receive from an
insistence upon their likeness are only partial. The
great seventeenth-century philosophers, Descartes
himself as much as any, in practice to some extent
recognized the differences which in the Discours had
been overlooked or implicitly denied. But that denial
was not only a symptom that these differences were
insufficiently apprehended; it was also an encouragement to overlook them, which reacted on philosophy
itself by holding up to it a distorted picture of what
it ought to be; and it was this reaction that set his
problem to Kant.
10. Of the three Cartesian sciences, mathematics,
science of nature, and metaphysics, to all of which
Descartes had proposed to apply one and the same
method, Kant, a century and a half later, could see
that not all had profited equally. The Cartesian
mathematics had stood firm, and continued to advance ; the Cartesian natural science had undergone
a good deal of criticism, notably at the hands of
Newton; and the Cartesian metaphysics hadworked
itself into a blind alley. The inference was that
20
INTRODUCTION
Descartes's method, as stated by himself, was adequate to the case of mathematics, but required
modification in natural science, where it showed insufficient grasp of the significance of experiment, and
still more modification in the case of metaphysics.
Some of Kant's younger contemporaries and successors ascribed to him the design of discrediting
metaphysics for ever. It was a misconception both
of what he intended to do and of what he did; but
there was an excuse for it. Kant initiated a new kind
of philosophy, as he thought, which he called transcendental or critical philosophy; its purpose was
to serve as a propaedeutic or introduction to metaphysics, to warn the metaphysician against fallacies
of method and to set him on the right road. It was
in fact essentially a methodology of metaphysics.
Having mastered the propaedeutic, Kant assumed
that the philosopher would go back to his proper
work, that of metaphysical speculation; and that
now, having learnt its proper method, metaphysics,
reformed and reorganized, would advance with the
same sure tread as mathematics and the science of
nature.
On Kant's programme, therefore, there were in
future to be two distinct philosophies: a methodology, which he conceived himself to have given to
the world in a definitive shape, and a substantive
philosophy which, guided by this methodology,
would be able to progress indefinitely. But this
division, however attractive at first sight, was soon
found unsatisfying. So far from being definitive, the
INTRODUCTION
21
Critique of Pure Reason brought the problems of
methodology into the focus of men's thought, and
gave rise to discussionswhichto some extent diverted
them from metaphysics and for a time made that appear a dead subject; and even Kant himself was not
clear in his own mind about the relation between
the two things, for he saw that in one sense critical
philosophy was a part of metaphysics, though in
another it was an introduction to it.1
He had impaledhimself on the horns ofa dilemma.
If the methodology of philosophy (Kritik) is a propaedeutic to philosophyitself (Metaphysik), the name
of philosophicalscience (Wissenschaff)
cannot belong
to them both; and weget the result, either that this
name must be denied to the Critique of Pure Reason
itself, a paradox rightly rejected by Kant's followers,
or that it belongs exclusivelyto the propaedeutic and
must be denied to substantive philosophy, whichwas
from Kant's own point of view still moreparadoxical.
But onthe other alternative,ifmethodologyisapartof
philosophy, Kant's programme collapses; for wecan
no longer hope to settle the methodological problems once for alland then go on with the substantive
philosophy, because any advance in that will react
upon and reopen the problems of methodology.
For this reason we cannot look to Kant for a
1K.R.V. A841, B 869: ' diePhilosophic der reinen Vernunft
ist nun entweder Propadeutik (Voriibung), welche . . . heisst
Kritik, oder zweitens das System der reinen Vernunft (Wissenschaft) ... [welche] heisst Metaphysik; wiewohl dieser Name
auch der ganzen reinen Philosophic mit Inbegriff der Kritik
gegeben werden kann.'
22
INTRODUCTION
satisfactory theory of philosophical method. What
he has to teach us on that subject will fall into two
parts which he tries, but without success, to keep in
two watertight compartments: one relating to the
principles and methods of transcendental philosophy and taught chiefly by example, the other to
those of metaphysics, taught by precept in the concluding chapters of the Critique.
Bearing this in mind, we may turn to these chapters in order to see how Kant, at the end of his
critical inquiry, sums up his conclusions as to the
method of metaphysics. At once we see that his aim
is not so much to controvert but rather to correct
Descartes, by a careful distinction between philosophical and mathematical thinking. He argues in
detail that, of the special marks of mathematical
science, not one is to be found in philosophy, and
that the adoption of mathematical methods there
can do nothing but harm.1 Philosophy knows no
definitions: or rather, their place in philosophy is
not at the beginning ofan inquiry but at the end; for
we can philosophize without them, and if this were
not sowe could not philosophize at all.1 Philosophy
knows no axioms: no truths, there,are self-evident,
any two concepts must be discursively connected by
means of a third.3 Philosophy knows no demonstrations : its proofs are not demonstrative but acroamatic; in other words, the difference between
mathematical proof and philosophical is that in the
former you proceed from point to point in a chain of
1 A 726, B 754. A 727, B 755. 3 A 732, B 761.
INTRODUCTION
23
grounds and consequents, in the latter you must
always be ready to go back and revise your premisses
when errors, undetected in them, reveal themselves
in the conclusion.1
From this admirably clear and conclusive series
of distinctions, Kant turns to discuss the principles
of philosophical controversy. That reason has the
right to criticize every opinion and discuss every
subject with perfect freedom he proclaims with emphasis ; but these discussions, he thinks, are bound
to end in antinomies from which reason can find no
issue. They cannot even be resolved, like the antinomies of the understanding, by reflecting that the
objects to which they relate are mere phenomena ;
for they are not; they are things in themselves.2 In
this situation, what we must do is to accept those
propositions which are 'consistent with the speculative interest of our reason'; for example, the existence of God and the freedom of the will; sceptical
attacks on these propositions, therefore, are not to
be feared, and should, indeed, be encouraged for
the exercise which they give to the powers of
thought.
I have quoted this passage in order to illustrate
the confusions into which Kant is betrayed by his
failure to think out the relation between critical
philosophy and metaphysics. His plea for liberty of
discussion in metaphysics rings true; but his reason
for defending it destroys the incentive to it; for he
argues that it can do no harm, since it can come to
1A 734, 6762.
* A 741, 6769.
24
INTRODUCTION
no conclusion. Why then should we pursue it ? Because, says Kant, it is a useful gymnastic, in which
reason comes to know itself better. This amounts
to saying that the true end of reason is to come to
a knowledge of itself, to become aware of its own
power and limitations,in aword to master the lessons
of the critical philosophy, and that metaphysical
argument is of value only as an introduction to
this.
The relation between the two kinds of philosophy
has here suffered a complete inversion : originally
criticism wasto be the propaedeutic to metaphysics
and give it the means of progressing; here metaphysics is the propaedeutic to criticism, and expires
when criticism appears on the scene; for, as Kant
himself remarks,the growth of criticism is bound to
bring metaphysical controversy to a close. Neither
of these two opposing views, taken by itself, truly
represents Kant's thought. But they cannot be
reconciled except at the cost of revising everything
he has told us about the relation between his two
kinds of philosophy.
The philosophical work of Kant is one of those
things whose magnitude only seems to increase with
every advance in our understanding of them; it bestrides the world, even now, like a colossus, or like a
mountain whose waters irrigate every little garden
of thought in the plains beneath it. And the problem
of philosophical methodology was the central problem of his life. Yet he left this problem to posterity,
not conquered, but only, as Caesar left Britain,
INTRODUCTION
25
indicated. So long as he confines himself to drawing
the distinction between philosophical method and
mathematical, his touch is that of a master; every
point is firm, every line conclusive. But when he
turns to give a positive account of what philosophy
is, his own distinction between a critical propaedeutic and a substantive metaphysics, hardened
into a separation between two bodies of thought,
becomes a rock on which his argument splits. Even
so, he went immeasurably beyond any of his predecessors in thedirection of a truetheoryof philosophy.
He solved rightly the problem which Plato had
solved wrongly, the problem of the methodological
difference between philosophy and mathematics,
and so laid a firm foundation for all future inquiries
into the nature of philosophical method.
4033
II
THE OVERLAP OF CLASSES
i
i. HISTORICAL thought concerns itself with something individual, scientific thought with something
universal; and in this respect philosophy is more
like science than history, for it likewise is concerned
with something universal: truth as such, not this
or that truth; art as such, not this or that work of
art. In the same way exact science considers the
circle as such, not this or that individual instance of
it; and empirical science considers man as such,
not, like history, this man as distinct from that.
It is thereforeclear that, up to a point, philosophy
has something in common with science, whether
exact or empirical. But it is not clear how far the
resemblance extends or what differences lie beyond
it. To make some progress towards answering that
question is the purpose of this essay; and, dividing
the problem into parts and beginning with the simplest, I shall first consider what, in the statement that
philosophy is concerned with the universal,is meant
by the word universal.
To give an account of the universal, or, as it is
also called, the concept, is the business of logic; but
we cannot here content ourselveswith simplyaccepting what logicaltext-books haveto sayon the matter.
We have a special question to ask: whether there
are any differences between the concepts found in

27
philosophy and those found in science, whether
exact or empirical, and if so what they are. The
ordinary text-books of logic assume that there are
none; that a concept is always a concept, and that
any theory which adequately describes the concepts
of science will adequately describe those of philosophy also. But our task involves reconsidering that
assumption ; for once it is admitted that there may
be differences of some kind between philosophy and
science, and that these differences may affect their
methods, we cannot be too careful in considering
how far they go and how deeply they affect the
logical structure of these two kinds of thought.
It will be best, then, to begin by considering
what account of the concept is given by traditional
logic, and asking whether this requires modification
in the special case of the concepts found in philosophy.
Traditional logic regards the concept as uniting
a number of different things into a class. The members of the class are not merely grouped together,
they are united by sharing a common characteristic,
and are thus all members of the class only because
they are all instances of the concept. The concept
unites in itself two distinct kinds of plurality: first,
the plurality of its individual instances,and secondly,
the plurality ofits specific differentiations. Thus the
concept colour unites all the individual colours of
all individual coloured things into a class of which
they are members; but it also unites the specific
colours red, orange, yellow, green, and so forth into
28
a genus of which they are species. It may be convenient to refer to the former unification by saying
that the concept is general, to the latter by saying
that it is generic.
The logical doctrine of classificationand division,
as it stands in the ordinary text-books, implies a
certain definite connexion between these two characteristics of the concept: namely, that if a genus is
distinguished into a certain number of species, the
class of its instances can be correspondingly divided
into an equal number ofsub-classes. Each sub-class
will comprise the instances of one specific concept;
the totality of the sub-classes will comprise those of
the generic concept. Thus every individual present
in the generic class will be present in one, and only
one, of the specific classes, which are thus exclusive
in relation to each other and exhaustive in relation
to the generic class.
Logicians sometimes assume that this follows
necessarily from the nature of the concept, and
therefore applies universally to every concept whatever. But this is not the case. From the fact that
a certain generic nature may be realized in various
specific ways, it does not follow that no instance can
realize it in two of these ways at once. For example,
a work of art as such has a generic nature, which is
differently realized in the specific natures of poetry
and music. How, then, are we to classify a song?
Common sense would rebel against calling it two
separate works of art, a poem and a piece of music,
going on at once; and it would be even more

29
paradoxical to describe it as a third species, neither
music nor poetry; nothing will serve but to say
that it is both poetry and music, a single work of art
containing the two specific forms.
2. Some logicians, recognizing this, treat the
doctrine of classification and division not as the
statement of a necessary element in the theory of
the concept but as the mere description of a special
kind of thing called a classificatory system.
But classificatory systems are not things that may
be constructed or dispensed with at pleasure. In
mathematics, for example,they are invariablyfound.
A line is either straight or curved ; these are the two
species into which the genus line is divided, and
they are exclusive and exhaustive: no line can be
both, and there is no third species. The mutual exclusiveness of the species is not destroyed by identifying the straight line with the arc of a circle whose
radius is infinitely long; that identification only
marks the criterion (infinite length of the radius)
which transfers the instance from one class to the
other; it does not cause a genuine overlap of the
classes. Further, because the line can be divided in
this way, plane figures can be divided in the same
way into rectilinear and curvilinear; such figures as
a semicircle forming, not an overlap of these two
classes, but a third class in which the bounding lines
are partly straight and partly curved. In general,
the concepts of exact science strictly conform to the
rules of classification and division as laid down by
logicians. Upon this conformity the methods used
30
in exact science depend as the conditio sine qua non
of their validity.
3. The same general conformity appears in the
concepts of empirical science. Natural history
divides organisms into animals and vegetables; even
if there are some doubtful cases on the frontier, still
the two great kingdoms are in principle, and almost
wholly in practice also, mutually exclusive. The
animal kingdom again is divided into vertebrates
and invertebrates; vertebrates into mammals, birds,
reptiles, and fishes; and so forth. At every stage
there is a division of one concept, a logical genus,
into others, its logical species, which are mutually
exclusive and together exhaust the genus. There are
difficulties about doing this: border-line cases,where
it seems arbitrary to assign the individual either to
this species or to that; paradoxical cases, where
according to the chosen criterion an individual falls
in one species when, on all other grounds, it would
naturally be assigned to another; and the constant
problem of ensuring exhaustion of the genus without
adding, in defiance of sound principle, a 'miscellaneous' species at the end of the list. There are
even cases where two adjacent species seem to overlap ; as with the amphibians, which can breathe both
in air and in water; but these cases are exceptional
and limited, and can be fitted into the general classificatory structure of the concept without damage to
its solidity. These difficulties are peculiar to empirical science; in mathematical or exact science
they do not arise, for there the divisions can be

31
carried out a priori, and in consequence the exclusiveness and exhaustiveness of the species are
assured.
2
4. The traditional theory of classification and
division, however true it may be as an account of the
logical structure of all concepts belonging to science,
exact or empirical, must be modified in at least one
important way before it can be applied to the concepts of philosophy. The specific classes of a philosophical genus do not exclude one another, they
overlap one another. Thisoverlap is not exceptional,
it is normal; and it isnot negligible in extent, it may
reach formidable dimensions.
If this is true, it will have serious consequences.
It will make a difference as to the precise sense in
which these classes together exhaust the genus, for
their 'togetherness' will be of a peculiar kind. It
will even make a difference as to the sense in which
they are species of a genus at all. But these questions
must be deferred until the first point has been established. In the argument of this essay the overlap
of classes is to serve as a clue to discovering the
peculiarities that distinguish philosophical thought
from scientific; and therefore it is important that I
should convince the reader, if I can, of its reality;
for although it is familiar in philosophy and also, as
I have remarked, to common sense, it is a paradox
from the point of view of science; and a reader
trained chiefly in that field may be tempted to meet
the assertion of its reality with a flat denial.
32

I shall therefore attempt to show, first, that the
overlap of classes has long been recognized as a fact
in the case of certain possibly exceptional concepts;
secondly, that it seems characteristic of what I shall
call the philosophical phase of concepts that have
a dual significance, philosophical and non-philosophical ; and thirdly, that it is a regular feature
of the concepts which form the traditional subjectmatter of the philosophical sciences.
5. There are certain concepts whoserecalcitrance
to the rules of classification has long been notorious.
Aristotle, in the sixth chapter of the first book of the
Nicomachean Ethics, undertakes to inquire into the
logical characteristics of the concept goodness. It
had alreadybeen laid down, whether first by himself
or by his predecessors we need not ask,that in classifying concepts under more general concepts we
come at last to ten summa genera, the most general
concepts of all, the so-called categories. In this
chapter Aristotle points out that goodness is predicable under all the categories. But this is incompatible with the theory of classification, by which any
predicate (for example, blue) must come in its right
place under one category and one only (in this case,
quality). The inference is either that good is an
equivocal term, an alternative which Aristotle considers and rightly rejects, or that it is a concept of
a peculiar kind, which will not fit into the system
of classification.
Later philosophers developed the point here made
by Aristotle. There is a traditional formula, well

33
known from its quotation by Spinoza, omne ensest
unum verum bonum. These three predicates, unity,
reality, and goodness, are assigned by traditional
metaphysics to every ensor being. But if all concepts
werearranged in a table of classification, each divided
at each stage into mutually exclusive species, the
highest term in the table would be the most abstract
of all possible abstractions : simple, abstract being.
If being has necessary determinations such as according to this doctrine unity, reality, and goodness
are held to be, it follows that these determinations
are somehow exempt from the rules of classification.
Just as Aristotle showed that the concept of good
overlaps or transcends or diffuses itself across the
divisions of the categories, so, according to this
traditional formula, there is a similar overlap or
transcendence or diffusion in the concepts of unity
and reality.
6. Something of the same kind happens whenever
a concept having a dual significance enters upon its
philosophical phase.
There are words which are used in two different
ways, a philosophical and a scientific; but the words
are not on that account equivocal; they undergo a
regular and uniform change in meaning when they
pass from one sphere to the other, and this change
leaves something fundamental in their meaning unaltered, so that it is more appropriate to speak of
two phases of a concept than two senses of a word.
For example, matter is a word used both in
physics and in metaphysics; and the dual usage is
4033
F
34
so far from being an equivocation, that we can trace
not only a general connexion between the physical
and metaphysical notions of matter, in spite of the
difference between them, but even a special connexion between a particular physical theory of matter
and a particular metaphysical theory corresponding
to it; for example, the concept of matter in what
may be called classical nineteenth-century materialism is the metaphysical counterpart of the scientific
concept ofmatter in the classical Newtonian physics.
The difference between the two phases of the concept is that in Newtonian physicsmatter is the name
of a certain class of things, separate from other
classes of things, such asminds, and appearances like
colours or sounds depending for their existence on
the mind to which they appear; in materialistic
metaphysics it is the name of reality as a whole, and
every distinction like that between so-called matter
and so-called mind is reduced to a distinction within
matter itself.
Such cases are common. Mind, for the scientist,
in this case the psychologist, is the name of one
limited class of things outside which lie things of
other kinds ; for the spiritualistic philosopher, it is
a name, perhaps the best or only name, for all
reality. Evolution, for the biologist, is the way in
which species of living organisms came into being;
for the philosopher, it is either a thing of no philosophical interest or else a cosmic process at work
wherever anything specific has its origin.
Even in concepts that have no strictly scientific

35
phase, a similar distinction can often be traced between a philosophical phase and a non-philosophical. Thus art, for the critic, is a highly specialized
thing, limited to a small and select body of works
outside which lie all the pot-boilers and failures of
artists, and the inartistic expressions of everyday
life ; for the aesthetic philosopher, these too are art,
which becomes a thread running all through the
fabric of the mind's activity.
An extreme case of the same principle will become
increasingly important as wego farther into our subject. Even words like concept, judgement, inference,
though at first sight unambiguously philosophical,
betray subtle distinctions of meaning according as
they are applied to philosophical or non-philosophical thought; and these differences of meaning, one
of which is alreadyunder examination in the present
chapter, will be found to obey the same general law.
It appears from these instances that when a
concept has a dual significance, philosophical and
non-philosophical, in its non-philosophical phase
it qualifies a limited part of reality, whereas in its
philosophical it leaks or escapes out of these limits
and invades the neighbouring regions, tending at
last to colour our thought of reality as a whole. As
a non-philosophical concept it observes the rulesof
classification, its instances forming a class separate
from other classes; as a philosophical concept it
breaks these rules, and the class of its instances
overlaps those of its co-ordinate species.
This is a familiar fact. It is often held up as an
36
inherent vice ofphilosophical as opposed to scientific
thinking. What concerns us is not the question
whether it is a vice or a virtue, but the fact that it
happens. That it happens sometimes, these instances
show ; and this is enough to prove it a danger with
which philosophical thought must reckon if it adopts
methods proper to science, where this feature does
not exist. If it happens always, it is more than a
danger; it isa clue to the peculiarities of philosophical thinking and the characteristics ofa philosophical
method. In order to decide whether it does happen
always, we must turn to the concepts that form
the subject-matter of the traditional philosophical
sciences, and see whether an overlap of classes is a
regular feature of their logical structure.
7. Logic distinguishes within the genus thought
two species,judgement or proposition and inference.
These, as subject-matter of separate parts of logical
treatises, seem at first sight to be related much as
the triangle and the circle are related in elementary
geometry ; and in that case they would, like the triangle and the circle, be mutually exclusive classes.
But they are not mutually exclusive. That it is raining is a judgement; that it is raining because I
can hear it is an inference. Of these two statements
one includes the other; and it is therefore clear
that the specific classes overlap : a judgement may
also be an inference, an inference may also be a
judgement.
'It is true,' I may be told, 'that judgement and
inference are not mutually exclusive like triangle

37
and circle ;but this only shows that you werewrong
to think of them as two species of thought. An inference is a complex structure built up out of a
number of judgements in certain relations ; if you
want a geometrical analogy, think of judgement as
a line and inferenceas a triangle.' I should welcome
this criticism as an admission that, if species must
exclude one another, judgement and inference cannot be species of a genus thought; but I should
think the critic more courageous than wise; for his
readiness to throw overboard the whole conception
of genus and species, at the first hint of trouble, will
lead him into difficulties whose magnitude I shrink
from exploring at this point. The question willhave
to be considered later. In the meantime, there is
another criticism to answer.
'You are first misapplying the rules of classification,' I may be told, 'and then blaming notyourself
but them for the consequences. Instead of treating
thought as a genus and dividing it into the species
judgement and inference, you ought to have identifiedthought with judgement, and divided this into
inferential and non-inferential or immediate.' But
this would be a mere subterfuge ; for the second of
the two species is really nothing but judgement as
such, and therefore identical with the genus ; so that
the ill consequences of making judgement and inference co-ordinate species of a genus are not
avoided; there is only added the additional illogicality of identifying this genus with one of its own
species.
38

The same difficulty reappears at the next stage in
the classification. Within the judgement or proposition, logic distinguishes two species, affirmative and
negative. According to the theory of classification
it ought to be possible first to define the generic
nature ofjudgement, without reference to its species,
as we define the triangle without reference to the
distinction between equilateral, isosceles, and scalene, and then to add the differentias of the two
species separately. But if we try to define the judgement generically, we find that it cannot be done:
either our attempt results in giving a definition of
one species (the affirmative) for that of the genus, as
when we say that a judgement affirms a predicateof
a subject, or else it results in merely enumerating
the species, as when we say that ajudgement is that
which either affirms or denies a predicate.
Nor is this the only difficulty at this stage. According to the theory ofclassification, affirmative and
negative judgements ought to be two alternative
species, each completely exhibiting the generic
nature of judgement, as straight lines and curved
lines each completely exhibit the generic nature of
a line. But if, in the attempt to discover what
exactly a negative judgement is,we take an example
and purge it of everything affirmative, no student of
logic needs to be reminded that we end by reducing
it to nothing at all. At the moment when it becomes
merely negative itceasestobea significant judgement.
If that is so--and it is, as I say, a commonplace
of the logical text-books--affirmative and negative

39
judgements are so far from being mutuallyexclusive
species that all negative judgements, and not some
only, are also affirmative. But if the reader hesitates
to accept this view, he will perhaps at least admit
that there are some judgements which are at once
affirmative and negative. If I say that my watch
has stopped, I both affirm that its mechanism is
at rest and deny that it is in motion; but this is
not a compound statement made up of one affirmative and one negative proposition; I am making one
statement, not two, and that statement is both the
affirmation of one thing and the denialof its opposite.
The same liability to overlap may be seen in the
other divisions of the judgement. The singular
judgement, for syllogistic purposes,' is regarded as
a universal; and in fact it does combine universal
and particular elements. The disjunctive is both
categorical and hypothetical. And as for modality,
a state of things which is not possible cannot be
actual, nor can it very well help being actual if it is
necessary. So also in the classification of inferences.
Aristotle gives us an inductive syllogism; Mill a
deductive method of induction.
Taking the classifications of traditional logic as
they stand, therefore, it would appear thatwherever
we divide a genus into species, these species, instead
of excluding each other likethoseof a scientific genus,
overlap ; or at any rate that this is the view of their
relation which has always been held by traditional
logic itself.
The critic whose observations I left unanswered
40
a few pages back may now claim a further hearing.
He may insist: 'You have drawn the wrong inference. Such distinctions asyou are describing, though
they may have been called specifications of genera,
are not really that; you have yourself proved that
they cannot be, because they overlap. You have
proved, rather, that affirmative and negative, universal and particular, and the like are elements
co-existing in a single judgement like convex and
concave in a single curve; but convex and concave are not kinds of curve, they are elements in an
indivisible whole.'
To this I reply: you are right, if terms like species
or kind must never be used except as they are used
in connexion with the scientific concept. But is
there any reason so to restrict them ? Surely common sense allows us to speak of poetry and music
as kinds of art, or induction and deduction as kinds
of argument, with as good a conscience as when we
call a circle and an ellipse two kinds of curve, or a
bird and a fish two kinds of animal; although we
are quite aware that those kinds overlap. And therefore I propose to go on using the word. Even if I
gave it up, that would make no difference to the
thing: namely, a peculiar type of logical structure
found in philosophical concepts, which in some
ways resembles the specification of a non-philosophical concept, but differs from it in that the
species, elements, moments, or whatever you choose
to call them, are exemplified in overlapping classes
instead of mutually exclusive classes.

41
The critic shakes his head. 'You are pursuing a
chimera,' I can hear him say. 'There is only one
kind of logical structure possible to a concept: that
in which the rules of classification are rigidly observed. Break them, and you have left the high road
of logical thought to lose yourself among morasses.
If traditional logic flouts these rules, so much the
worse, not for them, but for it; and our duty is not
to imitate it, but to reform it.' I shall return to this
warning in the sequel; for the moment, I pass on
to the case of ethics.
8. In ethics also, the traditionally recognized concepts are specified into overlapping classes. Take,
for example, two such concepts : that of goods and
that of actions.
Goods are traditionally divided into three species,
iucundum, utile, honestum: let us call them the pleasant, the expedient, andthe right. Some philosophers
have denied that the pleasant is a kind of good, and
others have said the same of the right; until the
reasons of these denials have been considered, which
shall be done by implication in the next chapter, I
will leave them on one side and merely ask what
those philosophers have meant who have said, as
most have said, that these are kinds of good.
Clearly, no one has ever meant that they are
mutually exclusive kinds. This would have implied
that whatever is pleasant must therefore be both
inexpedient and wrong; that whatever is expedient
must be both wrong and unpleasant; and that
whatever is right must be both unpleasant and
4033
G
42
inexpedient. And this, I imagine,no one hasever believed. Certainly it has not been a belief widely held
among philosophers; for no one believing it could
for a moment suppose either that virtue and happiness are the same, or that aman could enjoy doing his
duty, or that actions are right in so far as they tend
to promote happiness, or that pleasure is the sole
good, or that virtue is the solegood. In a word, there
is hardly any ethical theory, of all those that have
been propounded,which could even be contemplated
as possible by a person who denied the overlap of
these three classes.
Actions are commonly divided into classes according as they are done from motives of different kinds :
desire, self-interest, duty. The distinction is important because, according to the view commonly held,
the moral value of an act differs according to the
motive from which it is done, acts done from a
motive of duty being morallygood acts, and so forth.
If it could be held that acts done from these different
motives fall into separate and mutually exclusive
classes, this would greatly ease the task of assigning
to each act its true moral worth. But in spite of
this temptation to believe the contrary, moral philosophers have always recognized that in fact our
motives are often mixed, so that one and the same
act may fall into two or even into all three classes.
These and similar considerations make it clear
that in our ordinary thought about moral questions,
whether we call this thought philosophy or common
sense, we habitually think in terms of concepts

43
whose specific classes, instead of excluding one
another, overlap. For the present I am only concerned to establish this as a matter of fact: that we
do think in this way, not that we are right to think
in this way. The facts upon which I am insisting
may appear to my critic an open scandal; to assert
them may seem equivalent to admitting that our
ordinary common-sense thought on moral questions
is a perfect Augean stable of illogicality, and that
what passes by the name of moral philosophy is no
better; to insist on them, therefore, may seem only
to support the programme ofthose whowould banish
ethical subjects from philosophy altogether, or else
submit them to a ruthless purge by turning upon
them a flood of logical cold water. At present, my
only answer must be a plea for patience. The facts
are far worse, from their point of view, than these
reformers recognize. The scandal not only affects
ethics, but, as we have seen, it affects logic too, and
indeed all the other philosophical sciences. We must
wait until we have ascertained the extent of the
evil before we bring forward proposals for curing it.
9. The same overlap reappears in the relation
between logic and ethics as two wholes. Thought
and action, each considered in its essence, may be
as distinct as we will; but in their existence in concrete instances they are so connected that it is possible, and more than possible, for an instance of the
one to be an instance of the other also. Actual
thinking is a labour to which ethical predicates may
attach; and although it is a mistake to regard these
44
predicates as throwing any light on its nature as
thinking--a mistake made by those who regard
thought as essentially practical--they do throw light
on the question under what conditions thought can
exist. In the same way, although action itself is not
thought, an instance of action may be an instance
of thought also, and hence, without any confusion
between the two essences, it is possible to speak of
acting rationally, just as it is possible to speak of
thinking resolutely.
It would be wearisome to pursue the same conception through metaphysics, aesthetics, and whatever other philosophical sciences are recognized.
The reader can do it for himself; he will find that
everywhere the same rule holds good, that the
traditional specifications of philosophical concepts
form overlapping classes. If for this reason he
thinks that the traditional concepts, not only now
in ethics, but throughout the field of philosophy,
are riddled with contradictions, and must be revised
with extreme rigour so as to make them conform to
the rules of classification, let him attempt to revise
them ; if he does so he will find that they stubbornly
resist his efforts, and that if he is too deeply attached
to the rules of classification to countenance any
thinking in which they are not observed, he must
give up thinking at all about the topics which go by
the name of philosophy. For this type of structure,
in which specific classes overlap, is so deeply rooted
in the subject-matters with which philosophy has
always been concerned, that to set one's face against

45
it means abjuring any attempt to think seriously
about matters of that kind.
At this point, therefore, the reader is confronted
with a choice. If he is satisfied that the traditional
rules ofclassification must be rigidlyapplied to every
concept whatever, and that to think of the specific
classes of a genus as overlapping can onlyhave fatal
results for the whole structure of thought, he should
read no farther in this essay. But if he is prepared
to admit, I do not saythat he understands howsuch
an overlap is possible, but that philosophers may
conceivably have been right so consistently to affirm
it in spite of their own logical rules, then I invite
him to join with me in the following experiment.
Let us assume that traditional philosophy in
general is neither a body of truths to be blindly
accepted nor a mass of errors to be repudiated wholesale, but a mixture of good things and bad; and in
particular let us assume that on this question it has
not been wholly at fault, but that in some sense, to
be better discovered hereafter, an overlap of classes
is characteristic of the philosophical concept, and
may serve to distinguish it from those of exact and
empirical science. Let us see where this assumption leads us. If by working it out we arrive at an
account of philosophicalmethod which is both consistent with itself and consonant with our experience
of philosophical thinking, we shall be obliged to
ask whether, after all, it is not more than a mere
assumption. If it is merely a wanton defiance of
logic, we can be sure of soon discovering the fact;
46
for logic is well able to revenge itself on those who
defy it.
3
10. From the assumption that the philosophical
concept has a peculiar type of logical structure in
which specific classes overlap, there is one negative
inference which can be stated without delay. No
method can be used in philosophy which depends
for its validity on their mutual exclusion.
Such methods areoften and rightlyused in science.
In all empirical sciences we collect instances of a
generic concept and sort them into classes each presenting that concept in a specific form. This is the
way in which we proceed as a matter of course when
we wish to study the specifications of an empirical
concept, for example the varieties of wild rose. The
same method is applicable in exact science, but not
so useful, because there the generic concept can be
divided into its species a priori^ without the trouble
of sorting instances. In many sciences these two
methods of dividing a concept are combined.
Suppose this method were applied in philosophy.
Suppose, in order to study the specific forms of the
generic concept action, we began by collecting individual instances of action, and then sorted them
into actions done from duty, actions done from
interest, and actions done from inclination; hoping,
when this was finished, to examine each class in
turn and so determine what features are common to
all the actions in one class and absent from every
action in the other two. Before long, we should find

47
ourselves confrontedby an overlap : certain actions,
those in which motives were mixed, cannot be unambiguously assigned to any one class. What are
we to do ?
11. The right course would be to treat the overlap as a danger-signal: to stop using this method
altogether, pending a careful inquiry as to its appropriateness. But there isalwaysa temptation to ignore
such warnings; and in this case yielding to the
temptation will involve disqualifying the ambiguous
instances, ruling them out of consideration because
they will not fit into our scheme--whereas this is
the very reason why we ought to attend more carefully to them--and confining our attention to that
part of our subject-matter in which the overlap
seems to be absent: actions in which we can persuade ourselves that the motives were absolutely
unmixed.
The result will be that our theory as to the nature
of any specific form of a generic concept will be
built upon the margin where the overlap between
this form and another has not yet made itself felt.
This method of investigation is often followed. One
philosopher, discussing the theory of perception and
distinguishing veridical perception from illusion,will
rule out of consideration all instances in which a
perception seems tainted with the character of illusion, and will endeavour to study instances of purely
and simply veridical perception. Another, studying
the generic concept of goods and its specific form,
that of things good in themselves, will propose as a
48
method the question whether this or that thingwould
be good if nothing else existed, as if things good in
themselves formed a separate class of goods, which
would remain when everythingpossessed of a merely
relative goodness had been thrown aside.
All such inquiries are vitiated by a fallacy, which
may be called the fallacy of precarious margins. It
consists in assuming that the overlap which has
already affected a certain area of the class in question can be trusted not to spread, and that beyond
its limit there lies a marginal region in which the
instances exhibit only one of the specific forms,
uncontaminated by the presence of the other. This
margin is necessarily precarious, because once the
overlap is admitted in principle there is no ground
for assuming that it will stop at any particular point;
and the only sound canon of method is so to conduct
the inquiry that its results would stand firm however
far the overlap extended.
12. But it is possible to avoid this fallacy at the
cost of falling into another. Once it is recognized
that the overlap is in principle unlimited, and that
sound method requires him to proceed as if the two
specific classes coincided throughout their extension,
a philosopher who has begun by thinking that every
concept must have a group of instances to itself
may conclude that, since there is only one group of
instances, there is only one concept: he therefore
declares his two specific concepts identical. Thus,
it is observed that a man who does his duty often
thereby increases the happiness of people in general;

49
it is reasonably conjectured that this is so, not often
merely, but always; and it is concluded that since a
dutiful action always increases the general happiness,
there is no distinction between the concept of duty
and the concept of promoting happiness. Errors of
this type are so common that a catalogue of them
might fill a book. The false principle at work in
them is that, where there is no difference in the
extension of two concepts, there is no distinction
between the concepts themselves. This I propose
to call the fallacy of identified coincidents.
13. These two fallacies are alternative applications
of a single principle which, however true in exact
and empirical science, is false in philosophy: the
principle that when a generic concept is divided into
its species there is a corresponding division of its
instances into mutually exclusive classes. I call this
the fallacy of false disjunction, because it consists
in the disjunctive proposition that any instance of a
generic concept must fall either in one or in another
of its specific classes; and this is false because,
since they overlap, it may fall in both. Applied positively, this yields the fallacy of precarious margins :
namely that, since there admittedly is a distinction
between two concepts, there must be a difference between their instances. Applied negatively, it yields
the fallacy of identified coincidents: namely that,
since the instances can admittedly not be separated,
there is no distinguishing the concepts.
14. The first rule of philosophical method, then,
will be to beware of false disjunctions and to assume
4033
H
So
that the specific classes of a philosophical concept
are always liable to overlap, so that two or more
specifically differing concepts may be exemplified in
the same instances. A useful reminder of this rule
is Aristotle's formula for the overlap of classes: he
is in the habit of saying about two concepts m per
TO avm TO oe elvai CLVTOIS ov TO avTO : the tWO Concepts
'are the same thing' in the sense that a thing which
exemplifies the one exemplifies the other also, but
'their being is not the same' in the sense that being
an instance of the one is not the same as being an
instance of the other. The traditional way of referring to this principle is to speak of 'a distinction
without a difference', that is, a distinction in the
concepts without a difference in the instances. The
rule may be put, then, by saying that any distinction
in philosophy may be a distinction without a difference ; or, alternatively, that where two philosophical
concepts are distinguished Aristotle's formula may
hold good, that the two are the same thing but their
being is different.
15. It may be of interest, at the conclusion of this
chapter, to glance forward and ask how the observance of this rule will affect a philosopher's expectations of the direction in which his thought is likely
to move and the results which it islikelyto achieve ;
although at this stage any such anticipations will be
merely negative, being too vague and general for
positive statement.
A philosophy proceeding according to this rule
cannot set before itself as an end the classification

51
of its subject-matter, as a botanist or naturalist may
regard it as an end to distinguish and arrange species
of plants or animals. For the subject-matter of philosophy, owing to the overlap of its classes, does not
admit of classification in that sense. It canbe classified only in a provisional and temporary manner,
such classification being therefore not an end in itself
but only a means to the distinguishing of elements
which coexist in actual fact: thus we may classify
actions into those done from duty and those done
from inclination, so long as we remember that our
instances of each are almost sure to be instances of
the other as well, and use the classification merely
as a means to fixing our attention on the specific
peculiarities of acting from duty as such and acting
from inclination as such. The true work of philosophy will be the distinguishing of concepts like
these, coexisting in their instances.
16. But distinguishing such concepts cannot
mean simply enumerating the various elements
which analysis can detect coexisting in a concrete
fact. For these elements will be specifications of a
single concept, and therefore there will be logical
relations between them ; to represent the fact as a
mere aggregate of elements coexisting without any
such logical bonds will be to leave an essential part
of the analytic work undone. In an empirical concept like man, there is no apparent connexion
between such elements as having ten toes and
having the power of speech ; but in a philosophical
concept there cannot be this looseness of structure,
S2
and the various elements must be somehow interrelated. Hence no object of philosophical thought
can be rightlyconceived as a mere aggregate,whether
of logically distinguished elements or of spatial or
temporal parts; the parts or elements, however
proper it may be to distinguish them, cannot be
conceived as separable ; and therefore it is impossible that such an object should be either put
together out of parts or elements separately preexisting, or divided into parts or elements which
can survive the division ; for either of these would
imply that the connexions between the parts are
accidental, whereas they must in reality be essential.
17. Here a reader may say: 'By extracting these
consequences from a simple rule of method, you are
committing yourself to metaphysical statements of a
far-reaching and highly disputable kind, where you
cannot expect your readers to follow you.' But this
would be to misunderstand my purpose. A principle
of method is necessarily provisional. To commit
oneself to it at the beginning of one's inquiries, as
a cast-iron rule to be followed, come what may, in
every possible varietyofproblem and subject-matter,
would be foreign to the whole spirit of philosophical
thinking. Thinking philosophically, whatever else
it means, means constantly revising one's startingpoint in the light of one's conclusions and never
allowing oneself to be controlled by any cast-iron
rule whatever. What I have done is merely to issue
a warning against two unadvised assumptions: first,
that the object of which philosophy is in searchwill

53
turn out to be a classificatory system; secondly, that
this object will turn out to be an aggregate of parts.
And I do not even say that one or other of these
assumptions may not eventuallyprove correct; only
that neither can eventually prove correct if, as seems
to be the case at this stage of our inquiry, the
philosophical concept really has a peculiar logical
structure in which specific classes overlap. A person
who begins a philosophical inquiry with the assumption that the object of which he is in search has the
structure either of a classificatory system or of an
aggregate of parts, is committing himself to the
assumption that this apparent overlap of classes is
an illusion. For mypart, I ampursuing the hypothesis that it is not an illusion; and on that hypothesis
any philosophy which aims at conceiving its object
as a classificatory system or an aggregate of parts
is misconceiving its own aims and therefore its own
nature and methods.
Ill
THE SCALE OF FORMS
THE philosophical concept has been hitherto disI
cussed as if, apart from the overlap of its specific
classes, it resembled other concepts in structure.
But if this overlap is real it cannot be an isolated
peculiarity. The differences between the species of
a non-philosophical concept are of such a kind that
an overlap between them is unthinkable ; of what
kind, then, must be the differences between the
species of a philosophical concept, that an overlap
between them should be possible ?
i. We distinguish differences of degree from differences of kind. A beginning may be made by
asking if either of these, taken separately, would
explain the overlap.
It is not explained by a mere difference of degree.
If all instances of a generic concept had one and the
same attribute in varying degrees, and if the genus
were divided into species according to these variations, there could be no overlap; for the point at
which any one specific class began would be the
point at which another ended. Examples are the
classification of books for a librarian's purpose by
size, and the classification of men by age for military
service.
It seems in fact to be generally admitted that no
philosophical importance attaches to mere differ-
THE SCALE OF FORMS

55
ences of degree. Philosophers are often engaged
with the question whether a certain thing possesses
a certain attribute or not; whether, for instance, a
bad work of art possesses some beauty or none at
all; but the mere degree to which the attribute is
present is held as a rule to be a matter outside their
province. Indeed, some of them hold that the attributes in which they are especially interested, such
as beauty, goodness, truth, reality, admit of no
degrees; and others, who would prefer to recognize
degrees in such matters, do not think that these by
themselves and apart from all differences in kind
serve as basis for the logical division of the concepts;
they think rather of the differences in degree as
somehow connected with differences in kind, so that
the concept is specified not according to mere differences of degree, but according to some combination of differences in degree with differences in
kind.
2. Mere differences in kind are equally impotent
to explain an overlap of classes. Non-philosophical
concepts, such as that of a conic section, may be
specified in this way, as into ellipse, parabola, hyperbola, and so forth; but this type of specification
cannot yield overlapping classes; the ellipse passes
into a parabola when one focus is removed to infinity, but this does not imply an overlap.
This again is generally recognized. The concept
of sensation, for example, is one with which philosophers have been much concerned ; but when the
genus sensation is divided into the species seeing,
56
THE SCALE OF FORMS
hearing, smelling, and so forth, differentiated solely
by kind, philosophers leave the separate consideration of these separate species to psychologists and
physiologists. As specified purely on a basis of kind,
therefore, sensation is regarded as a non-philosophical concept, or rather as a concept in a non-philosophical phase.
3. Sometimes, however, differences of kind are
found in combination with differences of degree;
and in that case philosophers are more apt to take
notice of them. If the distinctions between the
various virtues, whether the cardinal virtues, temperance, fortitude, wisdom, and justice, or the theological, faith, hope, and charity, or those of any
other scheme, are merely specific ways of behaving
well or being well disposed, differing among themselves only in kind, philosophers in general would
recognize that to insert a discussion of each into a
theory of virtue would be to load the theory with
empirical detail; but if, as Plato thought about the
cardinal virtues and St. Paul about the theological,
they differ among themselves also in degree, some
being higher than others on a scale of some sort,
most philosophers would feel, whether they could
justify the feeling or no, that a discussion of them
would be of genuinely philosophicalinterest. So for
the various arts, painting, poetry, music, and the
rest: if they are merely embodiments of the aesthetic spirit in different kinds of matter, a philosophy of
art, as distinct from an empirical description of art,
would prefer to ignore them; if they embody that
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57
spirit in different degrees, as some have thought,
they are generally recognized as belonging to its
subject-matter.
It seems, then, that where differences of degree
exist in combination with differences of kind philosophical thought is more interested in them than in
either existing separately; and this gives a hint that
some such combination may provide the answer to
our question.
4. The combination of differences in degree with
differences in kind implies that a generic concept is
specified in a somewhat peculiar way. The species
into which it is divided are so related that each not
only embodies the generic essence in a specific
manner, but also embodies some variable attribute
in a specific degree. In respect of the variable, each
specific form of the concept differs from the rest
in degree; in respect of the manner in which the
generic essence is specified, each differs from the
rest in kind. In such a system of specifications the
two sets of differences are so connected that whenever the variable, increasing or decreasing, reaches
certain critical points on the scale, one specific form
disappears and is replaced by another. A breaking
strain, a freezing-point, a minimum taxable income,
are examples of such critical points on a scale of
degrees where a new specific form suddenly comes
into being. A system of this kind I propose to call
a scale of forms.
It is a conception with a long history in philosophical thought. It is a favourite with Plato, who has
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THE SCALE OF FORMS
various scales or attempts at a scale of the forms of
knowledge : nescience, opinion, knowledge; conjecture, opinion, understanding, reason; poetry, mathematics, dialectic; a scale of the forms of being, from
nothing through half-being to true being ; scales of
the forms of pleasure, those of the body and those
of the soul, the latter more truly pleasures than the
former, or the impure and the pure, or a gradation
from pain through quiescence to true pleasure; scales
of the forms of political constitutions, and so on
almost endlessly. What is significant in Plato is not
so much the actual scale of forms by which in one
or another passage he expounds the structure of this
or that concept, as the evident conviction, pervading
all his work, that this is the type of structure which
philosophical concepts possess.
Nor is it a conviction peculiar to Plato, together
with the neo-Platonists, the Christian mystics, the
Platonists of the Renaissance, and others who may
be suspected of drinking more deeply than wisely
at the river of Platonic thought. Aristotle recognizes
the same type of logicalstructure, for examplewhen
he distinguishes the vegetable, animal, and human
'souls' as three forms of life arranged on a scale so
that each includesitspredecessor and adds to it something new. Locke classifies his main types of knowledge explicitly into 'degrees'. Leibniz attempted to
makeof it a central principle ofphilosophicalmethod,
as the law of continuity. Kant, whether through the
influence of Leibniz or rebus ipsis dictantibus, reverts
to it again and again, even at the cost of apparent
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59
or real inconsistency, as in the doctrine of the
schematism of the categories, where imagination
becomes an intermediary between sense and understanding, with a world of its own which is a kind of
Platonic nifiâ of the world of understanding. The
positivists and evolutionists of the nineteenthcentury
were no less emphatic in their belief that knowledge
was specified into grades on a scale of abstraction,
and nature into specific forms on a scale of development. In short, attempts to use the double criterion
of degree and kind as a key to the structure of the
philosophical concept have been so universal that it
is hardly possible to study the history of thought
without suspecting their correspondence with some
permanent characteristic of those concepts.
5. This type of structure, however, is not peculiar to philosophical concepts. Ice, water, and steam
make up a scale of forms; they differ from each other
both in degree, as hotter or colder, and in kind, as
specifically different states of the same body. Scientific thought is familiar with such cases : the periodic
table of the elements, the specific differences between
youth, maturity, and old age, and so forth.
But there seems to be a difference between a philosophical and a non-philosophical scale of forms in
one important respect. In a non-philosophical scale,
the variable is something extraneous to the generic
essence: thus the essence of water, that which is
common to its solid, liquid, and gaseous forms,
is represented by the formula H2O, and heat does
not appear in this formula either explicitly or by
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THE SCALE OF FORMS
implication. Hence, however widely the degree of
heat varies, the generic essence of water remains unchanged. Not only are all three forms equally forms
of water, each fully entitled to that name and all
that it implies, but even if the variable vanished
altogether and the temperature fell to absolute zero
the substance which had reached that temperature
would still be H2O.
6. In a philosophical scale of forms, the variable
is identical with the generic essence itself. In Plato's
scales of the forms ofknowledge,the variable is given
as 'definiteness' or 'truth' (aa^vet.a, dAêia) which are
essential characteristics of knowledge; in his scale
of being, it is reality; and the specific object of
opinion, in so far as it is unfit to be an object for
anything higher, is so because it is not wholly real
and is characterized by a certain indeterminacy of
being which is related to real being as confusion of
mind is related to real thought; in his scale of political forms, only the highest truly deserves the name
political,the rest arein varyingdegrees non-political;
and so on for the others.
In this, once more, Plato is not singular. For
Leibniz, the forms of knowledge are differentiated
by their degrees of 'clearness and distinctness'; but
here, as with Plato, the variable belongs to the
essence of knowledge itself; in calling sensation
'confused conception' Leibniz is calling it knowledge
--for, on his view, all knowledge is conception--but
qualifying that statement by an epithet indicating
that it is knowledge only in a low degree. Of Locke's
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61
'degrees of knowledge' the highest, intuition, is alone
wholly knowledge; the lowest, judgement, 'never
amounts to knowledge, no not to that which is the
lowest degree of it'; and the middle, demonstration,
is intermediate in degree, showing as it does 'some
sparks of bright knowledge'. The exact correspondence in point of structure between this scale and
the Platonic scales of being or pleasure is especially
instructive in a philosopher who can hardly be accused of Platonizing tendencies.
These instances are perhaps enough to convince
the reader, if he needs conviction, that there are
some grounds for saying that where we find expositions of a philosophical as opposed to a non-philosophical scale of forms we find the variableidentified
with the generic essence. The result of this identification is that every form, so far as it is low in the
scale, is to that extent an imperfect or inadequate
specification of the generic essence, which is realized
with progressive adequacy as the scale is ascended.
2
7. The idea of a philosophical scale of forms has
been stated in the foregoing pages merely as one that
has repeatedly appeared in the history of thought.
It remains to ask whether the many philosophers
who have used this idea as a key to the structure of the philosophical concept have been right
so to use it. The first step towards answering
this question must be to raise certain obvious difficulties.
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The idea of a scale of forms is easy enough to
accept when the generic essence is one thing and
the variable another; for in that case each specific
form is completely and equally with all the others
an embodiment of the generic essence, and therefore a real species of that genus. But if the variable
and the generic essence are the same, the idea contains an element of paradox; for the lower forms on
the scale are not, except in a relatively low degree,
species of the genus at all; and since it seems obvious
that a given concept must either be or not be a
species of a given genus, and that this is not a relation
admitting of degrees, it seems impossible to evade
the dilemma that either these lower forms arespecies
of the genus, in which case they are completely
species of it, or that they are not completely species
of it, in which case they are not species of it to any
degree whatever. In either case the idea of a scale
of forms whose variable is identical with the generic
essence falls to the ground, condemned as a tissue
of contradictions, a logician's nightmare.
There are criticisms which, merely because they
are so obvious, cannot be admitted without misgiving. This is one which is so well within the powers
of any beginner, after reading the first few chapters
of a logical text-book, that the question irresistibly
suggests itself: whichisthe more likely,that Plato and
Aristotle and Leibniz and Locke, and the other philosophers who have used the idea, all by some curious
coincidence made the same elementary blunder, or
that the criticism rests on a misunderstanding ? And
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63
if this answer fails to impress the critic, let him reflect that his criticism proceeds from the assumption that the doctrines concerning the structure
of the concept, which are expressed in elementary
text-books of logic, must be accepted without question and applied without modification as principles
of philosophical method; whereas the assumption
which in the last chapter we agreed to make,was that
in their application to philosophy they may require
some modification. Under the terms of our compact, therefore, this criticism should strictly be ruled
out of order ; for the time being we may postpone
it until we have considered a second and more
urgent difficulty.
8. This is the question whether the idea of a scale
of forms, as hitherto stated, serves to explain the
overlap between the species of a philosophical genus.
The answer is yes, if these species are opposites:
no, if they are distincts. If actions, for example, are
divided into the opposite species good and bad,
these terms in themselves will be the infinity and
zero ends of a scale of forms, and the intermediate
forms will partake ofboth opposites,each being good
to a certain degree, and also bad to a certain degree
in so far as it is not better; so that in all intermediate cases there will be an overlap of goodness and
badness, and the only cases left in the margins outside the overlap will be the pure abstractions of
goodness and badness in themselves, if indeed these
are conceivable. The intermediates, on the contrary,
being determined each by a unique combination of
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THE SCALE OF FORMS
the extremes, must be mutuallyexclusive : whereone
begins, the next ends.
In an overlap or coincidence of opposites there
is nothing paradoxicaland nothing peculiar to philosophy. Water, at any given temperature, is hot in
so far as it attains that temperature, and cold in so
far as it attains only that; wherever there is a scale
of degrees there is a coexistence of opposites at
every point in the scale. But in this special case of
a philosophical concept the overlap of opposites has
a curious result.
9. A concept may be specified either by opposition, as actions are divided into good and bad, or by
distinction, asactions are divided into just, generous,
courageous, and so forth. If overlapping, as we
assumed in the preceding chapter, is characteristic
of philosophical species, and if opposites overlap
while distincts do not, philosophical species are
always opposites and never distincts. Hence in a
scale of forms the extremes, being related by opposition, are philosophical species of the generic concept; the intermediates,being related by distinction,
are non-philosophical. Opposite species like good
and bad will thus belong to the philosophical
phase of their genus, and will provide appropriate
subject-matter for philosophical thought; distinct
species like just, generous, and courageous will
belong to its non-philosophical phase, and must be
banished from philosophy to some other sphere of
thought.
This leads to a simple and straightforward rule
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65
of philosophical method : since philosophical specification is into opposites and non-philosophical into
distincts, any distinctions found in a philosophical
subject-matter must be either banished from it as
alien to the sphere of philosophy or else interpreted
so as to appear cases of opposition. It is not enough
to show that these distinctions contain in themselves
an element or aspect of opposition; that will not
save them; the element of distinction must be completely eliminated and nothing except pure opposition allowed to remain.
10. Certain consequences of this rule can beeasily
foreseen. First, the embarrassing idea of a scale of
forms in which the variable is identical with the
generic essence can be dispensed with; for in such
a scale the intermediates are eliminated and only
the extremes are left; and thus all those connecting
links which philosophers have from time to time
interpolated between opposites can and must be
struck out, not merely as unnecessary complications
but as positive errors. Those ambiguous twilight
third terms which appear in the Platonic scales--the
spirited element between reason and appetite in the
soul; the quiescence between pleasure and pain;
the limbo where things welter between being and
nothingness--the imagination that connects sense
and understanding in Kant's schematism--and so
on, down to all the monstrous concatenations of the
Hegelian dialectic--all this can be simplified away
until each philosophical concept stands stripped and
bare as a genus specified into pure opposites whose
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inversely varying degrees of realization differ among
themselves merely empirically.
ii. Secondly, the same rule will apply to the
relation between any one philosophical concept and
any other. When all distinction is gone, the distinction between these cannot remain; there is
no longer one philosophical problem or group of
problems in logic, one in ethics, and so forth, for
the characteristics that mark off each of these from
the rest are examples of distinction and therefore
extraneous to philosophy ; and nothing is left except
a single pair of opposites, the mere abstract idea of
opposite terms, which have no particular nature and
no particular name--for any names by which we
may call them, such as the one and the many, subject and object, and the like, are borrowed from the
non-philosophical realm of distinction--colliding
eternally in a void.
The first consequence cannot fail to seem attractive. It amounts to this: that philosophy has taken
power tojettison all distinctions as merely empirical,
and is free to simplify itself at discretion by relegating to a non-philosophical sphere, labelled as history,
science, or what not, all the conceptions with which
it has no wish to deal, and to concentrate afresh on
its cardinal problems. But the first consequence
leads inevitably to the second. The same criterion
which has begun by banishing encumbrances must
go on to banish essentials. Point by point, the whole
subject-matter of philosophy is thrown aside, and
every problem is reduced to a mere empirical variant
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67
of one single problem, the problem of opposites,
which is not a problem because it has been solved;
and all its empirical variants can be solved, if that
can be called solving them, by mechanically repeating
the formula of this ready-made solution.
12. Even this may to some minds appear an attractive prospect, so let us proceed to a third consequence. The philosophical scale of forms has been
disintegrated into a philosophical relation and a nonphilosophical,the first between opposites, the second
between distincts. But this same analysis will apply
to a non-philosophical scale of forms. Here too
there are opposites, heat and cold, and distincts, ice,
water, and steam; if specification into opposites is
the mark of the philosophical concept, heat and
cold with their genus temperature are subject-matter
for philosophy; and the theory of heat becomes a
matter which the physicist must hand over to the
philosopher, although he may keep as his own the
specific differences between ice, water, and steam.
Neither can be expected to welcomethis proposal;
yet it cannot be rejected, if opposition is the principle of philosophical specification and distinction
that of non-philosophical; and no one can reject it
who wishes to confine the subject-matter of aesthetics, for example, to the opposition between beauty
and ugliness, relegating all degrees and kinds of
beautyto the rag-bag of empirical thought, or, logical
consequence of this, to restrict the work of philosophy to the exposition of a single clash of opposites,
endlessly repeated in endless historical avatars.
T
13. It may be thought a consequence alarming
enough to persuade a reader that the argument has
gone astray; but alarm is not the best motive for
rejecting a philosophical argument; it would be
better to hold our course until we are driven from
it by some unanswerable reason. Let us consider,
then, that the argument hasbrought us to a dilemma.
Is the relation between philosophical specification
by opposites and non-philosophical specification by
distincts itself a case of distinction or of opposition?
If distinction, then specification in general is a nonphilosophical concept, since it is specified on the
non-philosophical principle ; and thus the attempt
to maintain a dualism of philosophical and nonphilosophical thought has ended by absorbing the
conception of philosophical thought into a system
of non-philosophical thought in which its own
characteristics are necessarily lost. But if it is a
case of opposition, every concept is in some degree
philosophical and in some degree non-philosophical;
the assigning of this or that particular concept to
one or other category is impossible ; philosophical
logic as the logic of opposites has triumphed over
non-philosophical logic as the logic of distincts, and
with this triumph it has destroyed the distinction
between itself and its opponent.
Thus if either horn of the dilemma is accepted
the dualism of philosophical and non-philosophical
thought breaks down by the absorption of one into
the other; but the result is equally disastrous if an
escape is made between the horns. If the relation
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69
between opposition and distinction is itself neither
a mere opposition nor a mere distinction, but both
at once, or (what comes to the same) some third
thing intermediate between them, this very fact
shows that the dualism was an error, since a third
term has been found; and the question must be
raised, whether philosophical specification is really
by pure opposition, and not rather by this newlydiscovered third principle.
This question must be further considered hereafter. For the present, the dilemma has brought the
argument to a standstill. We have worked out a
preliminary sketch of the idea of a scale of forms;
it has led us deeper and deeper into a thicket of
paradoxes, and at last to a place from which there
is no forward road except at the cost of abandoning
the presuppositions we have brought with us ; and
we had best go back to the beginning of our argument to find where the first false step was made.
3
14. The preliminary idea of a scale of forms was
arrived at by combining differences of degree with
differences of kind. Going back to the beginning,
therefore, means reconsidering the notions of these
two types of difference. Philosophical specification,
it was suggested, appears to combine them; but
what are they before being combined ? Is there any
difference of meaning as between two usages of the
term degree, in philosophy and elsewhere?
Differences of degree occur both in philosophical
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THE SCALE OF FORMS
and in non-philosophical concepts. We saythat one
man or action is better than another, and we say
that one body is hotter than another. Now, as between these two examples, there is at least this
difference : that the heat in a body can be measured
whereas the goodness of a man or action cannot.
Equally impossible it is to measure degrees of beauty,
truth, pleasantness, or any other philosophical concept.
This is sometimes denied; but it would not, I
think, be denied by any one who bore in mind the
difference between measuring a thing and estimating
its size without measurement. Looking at two books
that are now before me, I estimate their relative
height and say that one is twice as tall as the other ;
but this, which is precisely not measuring, is the
most that any one thinks can be done for pleasures
or goods. When I measure the books, I find that
one is fifteen inches high and the other seven and a
quarter; so that the ratio is not two to one, but two
and a thirtieth to one. If some one tells me that
this thing is twice as pleasant as that, but boggles at
distinguishing between the presence or absence of
the odd thirtieth, I know that he has not measured
but has, at most, merely estimated ; I say at most,
because it is always possible that he is neither
measuring nor estimating, but is using quantitative
terms in order to express metaphorically something
not itself quantitative.
The confessed inaccuracy of alleged measurements of goodness,pleasure, and the likeis sometimes
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71
excused on the plea that allmeasurement is approximate. But the inaccuracy of genuine measurement
is restricted within a known margin of error, which
even in the crudest measurements is generally less
than one per cent.; and up to this margin, for example in asserting that my larger book is within a
tenth of an inch more or less than fifteen inches,
our statements based on measurement are strictly
accurate. Where these two conditions--known
margin of error, and complete confidence in the
accuracy of our figures up to that margin--are not
satisfied, there is no measurement; and in the socalled measurements of pleasure, goodness, and so
forth there is no attempt to satisfy them.
This objection is overcome only when, as happens
in the psychologicallaboratory,genuine instrumental
measuring replaces rough estimates of quantity. But
in this case what is measured is not pleasure or the
like, but certain bodily functions whose intensification roughly corresponds with an intensification of
pleasure or whatever it may be. To say that pleasure
admits ofmeasurement by such means,therefore,is to
confuse pleasurewith thesebodily concomitants of it.
15. In point of fact, then, we do not and cannot
measure these differences; but it may still be held
that the quantitative language sometimes applied to
them, though it cannot represent measurements,
may represent estimates of quantity rather than a
metaphorical expression of something else; for, it
may be argued, these things must be in principle
measurable, on the ground that whatever exceeds
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another thing must exceed it by a definite and therefore measurable amount.
I will waive the difficulty of understanding how
degrees of pleasure can be measurable in principle
but not in practice. I see how this can be said concerning the diameter of the sun, because to us it is
inaccessible; but if a man can measure his own skull
and not his own feelings, I should have thought it
could onlybe because feelings assuch resist measurement. But it is more important to point out that
the alleged ground of this measurableness is open
to criticism.
In heat as known to the physicist there are differences of degree; so there are in the heat we feel as
a bodily sensation. In physical heat, the excess of
one over another is a definite amount: we can raise
a pint of water from one temperature to another by
adding a certain amount of heat. In heat aswe feel
it, this is not the case. We cannot add a slightly
tepid feeling to a feeling of moderate warmth and
so produce a feeling of greater warmth. An intense
feeling may be produced by a sum of small stimuli,
each of which by itself would have produced a lesser
feeling; but it is not itself a sum of these lesser
feelings; where it exists, they do not exist at all.
As I move my hand nearer to the fire, I feel it
grow hotter; but every increase in the heat I feel is
also a change in the kind of feeling I experience;
from a faint warmth through a decided warmth it
passes to a definite heat, first pleasant, then dully
painful, then sharply painful; the heat at one degree
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73
soothes me, at another excites me, at another torments me. I can detect as many differences in kind
as I can detect differences in degree; and these are
not two sets of differences but one single set. I can
call them differences of degree if I like, but I am
using the word in a special sense, a sense in which
differences of degree not merely entail, but actually
are, differences of kind.
This applies to all differences of degree among
the specifications of a philosophical concept. They
are never mere differences of degree with which can
be connected a series of differences in kind; they are
differences of a peculiar type, which are differences
at once in degree and in kind. This is why they
cannot be measured, for measurement applies only
to pure differences of degree; and this is the real
basis of the distinction between a philosophical scale
of forms and a non-philosophical: in a non-philosophical scale there are differences of degree, and
co-ordinated with them differences of kind; in a
philosophical scale there is only one set of differences
having this peculiar double character.
I call it peculiar, but it is a type of difference quite
familiar to common sense, which here as elsewhere
knows both the philosophical and the non-philosophical phase of the concept, and in speaking of
degrees of kindred and affinity, the capital and other
degrees of punishment, nobility and gentry and
other degrees in the structure of society, university
degrees, the degrees of comparison in grammar, and
so forth, recognizes actual fusions of differences in
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degree, in the narrower or non-philosophical sense,
with differences in kind.
16. That there must in a philosophical subjectmatter be such a fusion, as distinct from any mere
combination, of difference in degree with difference
in kind, follows from the principle of overlapping
classes. Differences in degree and differences in
kind are two species of the genus difference, and in
the case of philosophical concepts they must accordingly overlap to form a type of difference partaking
of the nature of both. Instead of two types of difference, such as we find in the forms of water, one in
degree of heat, which is measurable, the other in
kind of physical structure, which gives rise to mutually exclusive specifications co-ordinated with the
degrees of heat, it follows from our fundamental
assumption that in the specification of a philosophical concept there must always be one single type of
difference : a difference in degree, but not measurable, and a difference in kind, but not susceptible
of arrangement in ungraded species; a difference,
that is, between various forms in which the generic
essence is embodied, which is also a difference in
the degree to which these forms embody it.
17. Beside difference of degree and difference of
kind, there is another pair of terms whose relation
calls for thought before we can return to our main
subject: opposition and distinction. Hitherto it has
been assumed that concepts may be related either
in one of these ways or in the other, and we have
tried in vain to base on this assumption an account
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75
of the difference between philosophical and nonphilosophical specification; we must therefore reconsider the assumption.
In its non-philosophical phase, opposition is a
relation subsisting between a positive term and its
own mere negation or absence. Cold, as understood by the physicist, is the lack, of heat; it is
nothing but a name for the fact that in any given
body there is not more heat present; at the zero end
of the scale, it is a name for the fact that there is
no heat present at all. But cold as we feel it is not
mere lack of heat as we feel it, but another feeling
with a positive character of its own; yet these are
not two distinct feelings merely, but two opposite
feelings. The relation ofphysical cold to the physical
heat of which it is the negation I call pure or mere
opposition; the relation of felt cold to felt heat is
at once opposition and distinction, these two being
fused into a single relation.
The same is true of the relation between good and
bad. To call a man bad is not merely to say that
he does fewer good acts, or acts less good in their
degree or kind, than another whom we call good;
it is to say that he does acts positively bad. What
is bad is thus distinct from what is good as well
as opposed to it. And the same relation recurs as
between truth and error, beauty and ugliness, and
all the pairs of opposites that figure inphilosophical
thought. Thus in general the kind of opposition
which is found among philosophical terms is at once
opposition and distinction, and subsists between
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THE SCALE OF FORMS
terms each having a definite character of its own
and yet forming together a true pair of opposites.
18. This again could have been predicted by considering the consequences of our original assumption. Distinction and opposition are two species of
relation; and where the term relation is applied
to a philosophical subject-matter it acquires the
special colouring proper to philosophical concepts,
that is, on our assumption, it denotes a generic concept whose specific classes overlap. In philosophical
thought, therefore, distinction and opposition will
necessarily combine into a peculiar type of relation
which is neither mere distinction nor mere opposition, but partakes ofboth these characters; a relation
which subsists between terms at once opposed and
distinct.
19. To sum up. Differences of degree and differences of kind, which in non-philosophical thought
can be disentangled from one another, are in philosophy fused into a new type of difference uniting the
characteristics of both. Distinction and opposition,
which in non-philosophical thought are two mutually
exclusive kinds of relation, in philosophy coalesce
into one, so that what seems at first sight a mere
opposition--the relation, that is, between a term and
its own absence--turns out to'be also a distinction
between two terms, and vice versa.
With these considerations in mind, we must go
back to the conception of a scale of forms, reinterpret it, and ask whether as so reinterpreted it can
overcome the first of the two defects which we found
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77
in our original sketch ofthe conception: namely, that
it implied that the species of a genus can embody the
generic essence in varying degrees, whereas it seems
self-evident that any one specific form must embody
the generic essence completely.
4
20. If in philosophical thought every difference of
kind is also a difference of degree, the specifications
of a philosophical concept are bound to form a scale;
and in this scale their common essence is bound to
be realized differentially in degree as well as differentially in kind. The identification of the variable
with the generic essence is thus no confusion, but
a necessary consequence of the special characteristics
of philosophical thought.
When from this point of view we look back at a
few examplesof philosophical scales of forms,we shall
perhaps recognize that the identificationof the variable with the generic essence loses all appearanceof
paradox in the light of this fusion of differences in
degree with differences in kind ; and it becomesplain
that this appearance arose from forcing upon the
facts of philosophical thinking an interpretation in
which the terms difference of degree and difference
of kind bore the special meanings proper to them in
a non-philosophical context.
21. Where one work of art is more beautiful than
another, no great subtlety of thought is needed to
recognize that it is beautiful in a different way; it
does not merely exceed the other, for the other has
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THE SCALE OF FORMS
its own kind of beauty, and can only be beaten by
one which achieves a beauty of a higher kind. Thus
it is not whollytrue that there are degrees of beauty,
if this means that beauty differs from beauty not in
kind but only in degree ; nor is it true that there are
no such degrees, if this means that the kinds of
beauty are all perfect each in its own way; for they
are different in degree as well as in kind, so that the
beauty of a comic epigram, however perfect, is not
only the beauty of a small thing compared with the
Iliad, but is a lesser as well as a different beauty.
The same is true of pleasure, goodness, and the
other concepts belongingto the sphere of philosophy.
Hastily considered, they may seem to obey the traditional rules of specification, modified by an overlap
of classes; more closely scrutinized, they always
reveal this characteristic fusion of differences in
degree with differences in kind.
22. When attempts are made not merely to differentiate classes of good things but to distinguish
kinds of goodness, it is constantly found that some
of these kinds are more truly goodness than others.
Thus if virtue, knowledge,and pleasure are taken as
three things each having its own kind of goodness,
it seems clear that pleasure, however intense and
however lasting, belongs to an inferior order of
goods as compared with virtue; inferior, that is, in
goodness.1 A similar result follows when the con1 Cf. Ross, TheRightand the Good, vi. It is there argued that
virtue is a higher kind of good than knowledge, and knowledge
than pleasure; these three species, with their differences of kind
THE SCALE OF FORMS

cept of goodness is divided in other ways ; for example if things good in themselves are distinguished
from things relatively good, or actions having moral
goodness from actions having the goodness of expediency. It seems impossible to recognize agenuine
difference of kind in goodness without recognizing
that in these kinds goodness is present in varying
degrees.
23. Pleasure is one kind of good, but by common
consent a relatively low kind. For this reason some
have scrupled to think of it as good at all; but these
scruples may be neglected when the idea of a scale
of forms has been grasped. The concept of pleasure
is not only one specific form in such a scale ; it is
itself, as a genus, specified in the same manner. Different pleasures are not only, as Bentham thought,
different in duration and intensity (his other 'dimensions'maybe ignored,asreferringto something other
than the intrinsic value ofthis or that pleasure); they
differ also, as John Stuart Mill pointed out, in 'quality' ; and by this he did not mean moral goodness
or some other quality distinct from pleasantness, he
meant quality 'merely as a pleasure', that is, pleasantness itself, as a thing admitting differences at once
of degree and of kind. It was by the criterion of
pleasure that Mill thought it better to be Socrates
dissatisfied than a fool satisfied; the pleasures of
Socrates, even if inferior to the fool's by Bentham's
quantitative tests, are superior in quality, so that they
79
fused with differences of degree so that the latterare not measurable, making up what I call a scale of forms.
8o
THE SCALE OF FORMS
deserve the name of pleasure in a sense in which the
fool's do not. Mill is in fact asserting that pleasures
form a scale in which the higher are more pleasant
than the lower ; and this is none the less true for
being, though Mill overlooked the fact, fatal to the
project of a hedonistic calculus.
24. The conception of a type of difference which
is at once a difference in degree and a difference in
kind releases philosophical thought from a series of
errors which fall into two groups.
Because it is recognized that there are differences
of degree in the subject-matter of philosophy, it is
sometimes assumed that these resemble the differences of degreefound in a non-philosophical concept
like the physicist's heat: that is, that they are differences of degree pure and simple, and therefore susceptible of measurement and calculation. From this
fallacy arise all the attempts to treat philosophical
matters like pleasures, goods, and so forth mathematically ; attempts so uniformly unsuccessful that
no one, perhaps, would be tempted to make them
but for the fear of falling into the opposite error.
This is the fallacy of assuming that, because the
species of a philosophical genus differ in kind, they
exhibit no differences of degree; from which it would
follow that all pleasures were equally pleasant, all
good things or good acts equally good, all beautiful
things equally beautiful, and so forth. These may
be called the fallacy of calculation and the fallacy
of indifference respectively; they represent the two
horns of a dilemma based on the false disjunction
THE SCALE OF FORMS

81
that a difference of degree cannot also be a difference of kind (false disjunction of degree and kind).
Here, as often happens with dilemmas, the victim may impale himself on both horns successively.
First, by the fallacy of indifference, he may argue
that pushpin is as good as poetry; then, redressing
the balance by adopting the fallacy of calculation,
he may try to represent those differences of degree
which at first he ignored by a calculus in which one
of these indifferent units is added to another.
5
No less important are the modifications introduced into the idea of a scale of forms by the fusion
of distinction with opposition.
25. In the provisional sketch of that idea, the scale
was described as consisting of extremes, opposed
to one another and representing the infinity and
zero values of the variable, and intermediates, representing various degrees of their inverse combination.
But if the variable is identical with the generic essence, the zero end forms no part of the scale; for
in it the generic essence is altogether absent. The
lower end of the scale, therefore, lies not at zero, but
at unity, or the minimum realization of the generic
essence.
This might seem to imply that, since the scale
contains no absolute opposite to the generic essence,
opposition as an element in the logical structure of
the scale disappears, and the scale consists wholly
of distincts. But this cannot be the case if there is
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THE SCALE OF FORMS
in such scales a fusion of distinction with opposition;
and looking closer we shall see that it is not the case.
26. The lowest member of the scale, the minimum
realization of the generic essence, is already, so far
as it goes, a realization of this essence, and therefore
distinct from other realizations ; but, as the limiting
case, it is an extreme, and therefore an opposite
relatively to the rest of the scale. Thus, if we try to
form an idea of pure unmitigated wickedness, we
find that, if we mean by this the complete absence
of goodness--a zero in the scale of good--not only
are there no extant examples of it,but we cannot even
form a conception of it. The phrase, however useful
as an expression of abhorrence, does not stand for
any fact or even for any thought. A real case, or
real conception, of extreme wickedness is a case or
conception of some action or character which, however bad, is never wholly devoid of goodness, but
possesses a goodness extremely low in degree and extremely low in kind. Here we stand in the scale of
goodness not at zero, but at unity.
27. This minimum case of goodness is certainly,
as one case of goodness, related to other cases by
distinction; but, as a case extremely low in degree
and kind, it is also related to them by opposition,
as a case of the negation or privation of good and
the presence of something hostile to good. It isnot a
thing whose moral nature, so far as it has any, is all
goodness, in the same way in which the temperature
of a very cold body is, so far as it goes, all heat. The
character or act which possesses an extremely low
THE SCALE OF FORMS

83
degree and kind of goodness is no less actual than one
possessing a higher degree and kind; it does something, or is something,no less definite, and this something has amoral quality not completely described by
calling it avery poor kind of good; we must go further
and call it positivelybad: the opposite of good.
Yet it has not two distinct attributes, goodness and
badness, little of the one and much of the other. Its
badness is nothing but its low degree and kind of
goodness, conceived as opposed to higher degrees
and kinds. Considered merely in itself, even this
minimum case of goodness is good. There is no
crime or vice which does not appear to the person
who embraces it as good--good within its own limits
and in the special wayin which at the moment goodness appeals to him; no error so double-dyed that
the person who falls into it does not for the time
being think it true; no work of art so exquisitely
false in taste that it may not be thought beautiful.
The people who accept and admire these things are
deceived, but not purely and simply deceived; we
can see for ourselves, if we put ourselves at their
point of view, that a person satisfied with so low
a degree and kind of goodness, truth, or beauty
is in these cases really getting what he asks, and is
deceived only in thinking that goodness, truth, or
beauty contains no more than that. The vice really
does achievesomething good : relief from pain, good
fellowship, or a sense of emancipation. The error
really does enshrine some truth, the bad work of
art does contain some beauty.
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THE SCALE OF FORMS

All this is true when the minimum case is considered in itself. But when it is considered in relation to higher cases, all is changed. Pleasure in
itself, so far as it goes, is good; but if the pursuit of
pleasure is compared with the pursuit of duty, it
becomes by comparison not merely less good, but
positively evil. The lowest case in the scale, when
compared with the next above it, not only loses its
own intrinsic goodness and acquires the character
of badness, but it actually becomes identical with
evil in general; in it the abstract idea of evil finds
a concrete embodiment, and at this point in the scale
the achievement of goodness simplymeans the negation of this one thing. Examples are common and
familiar. Every particular way ofbeing good involves
a struggle against some specific form of evil, some
besetting sin; and in such asituation this besettingsin
appears not as one alternative form of wrongdoing
but aswrongdoing itself. Every achievement of truth
involvescombatingsomeparticularerror, whichagain
is regarded not asone among possible errors, still less
as (what incidentally it always is) a partial and fragmentary truth, but as identical with error at large.
28. The same relation which subsists between the
lowest member of the scale and the next above it
reappears between any two adjacent forms. Each is
good in itself, but bad in relation to the one above;
and hence, wherever we stand on the scale, we are
at a minimum point in it; and conversely, however
far down we go, there is always the possibility of
going lower without reaching absolute zero.
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85
For a like reason we can always be sure that, when
we have distinguished one single term or phase in
the scale, closer scrutiny could break it up into a
complex of sub-phases organized in the same general
way. As applied to a philosophical subject-matter,
simplicity and complexity are not mutually exclusive,
they overlap ; simplicity is only a relative term, and
the complex, however deeply it is analysed, can only
be analysed into parts that are still complex. Indeed,
to think otherwise would imply that the terms of a
philosophical series can be treated like a series of
integers, and that would be to fall into the fallacy of
calculation.
29. This view of the relation between the terms
of a philosophical series, as a relation at once of
distinction and of opposition, destroys two groups
of errors : oneasserting that because evil, error, and
the like have actual existence in the world of experience, they are not negative but positive, standing to
good, truth, &c., in a relation not of opposition but
of mere distinction; the other asserting that because
they are the negation of these positive terms they
have no actuality, and that nothing evil exists. On
the whole, the tradition of European philosophy (I
have no right to speak of others) has kept clear of
both fallacies, and has insisted that evil and error in
themselves, as concepts, are privations, but that evils
and errors are actual, and must be vigorously fought
against. To waive the first contention for the sake
of maintaining the second is to betray one of the
fallacies I am here describing; to abandon the second
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THE SCALE OF FORMS
for its fancied inconsistency with the first is to betray the other.
The first may be called the fallacy of the false
positive, because it consists in makingapositive term
out of what is really a negative one; the second the
fallacy of null opposition, becauseit consists in placing
the opposite of any positive term at the zero end of
the scale. The dilemma of which these are the two
horns is based on the 'false disjunction that if two
terms are opposites they cannot be distincts (null
opposition), and if distincts they cannot be opposites
(false positive): the false disjunction of opposition
and distinction.
6
30. In the light of this further reinterpretation, we
can return to the second defect revealed by the provisional scale of forms : namely, its failure to account
for the overlap of classes.
The lowerof anytwo adjacent terms isgoodinitself
but bad relatively to its neighbour. Good and bad
are here used merely illustratively; wemight equally
well use true and false, or any other such pair of
terms. Now, the lower is not only good in general;
it is good in a specific way; and if by comparison
with its neighbour it loses its goodness, what it loses
cannot be merely goodness in general; it must be
this specific kind of goodness. What the higher term
gains by the comparison, therefore, is again not
merely goodness in general, but the specific kind
of goodness proper to the lower. The higher term
thus possesses not only that kind of goodness
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87
which belongs to it in its own right, but also the kind
which originally or in itself belonged to its neighbour. It not only surpasses its neighbour in degree
of goodness, but beats it, so to speak, on its own
ground. The lower promises more than it can perform ; it professes to exhibit a certain kind of
goodness, but cannot in reality do so in a more than
approximate and inadequate manner; just as it
cannot wholly achieve goodness, so it cannot wholly
achieve even that specific and admittedly imperfect
form of it which is characteristically its own; this
is genuinely achieved only by the next higher term,
which professes to exhibit not this but the form
next above it. Thus each term, which in itself is
simply one specific form of goodness, has also a
double relation to its neighbours: in comparison
with the one below, it is what that professes to be;
in comparison with the one above, it professes to be
what that is.
This relation may be described, as here, by the
metaphor of promising and performing; or it may
be described by saying that the higher is the reality
of which the lower is the appearance, or the ideal to
which the lower is an approximation, or the truth
of which the lower is a perversion. These are not
so much metaphors as descriptions of something
simpler and therefore more truly intelligible in
terms of something more complex and, to us, more
familiar. Promise and performance,appearance and
reality, and the rest, all presuppose the relation
which I am trying to describe ; it is a purely logical
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THE SCALE OF FORMS
relation, and unless we already understood it we
could not understand the various relations in terms
of which we try to explain it. As a purely logical
relation, it is a synthesis of the four relations which
it has been the task of this chapter to discuss : difference of degree, difference of kind, relation of
distinction, and relation of opposition. The higher
terra is a species of the same genus as the lower, but
it differs in degree as a more adequate embodiment
of the generic essence, as well as in kind as a specifically different embodiment; it follows from this
that it must be not only distinct from it, as one
specification from another, but opposed to it, as a
higher specification to a lower, a relativelyadequate
to a relatively inadequate, a true embodiment of the
generic essence to a false embodiment; as true, it
possesses not only its own specific character, but
also that which its rival falsely claimed. The higher
thus negates the lower, and at the same time reaffirms it: negates it as a false embodiment of the
generic essence, and reaffirms its content, that
specific form of the essence, as part and parcel of
itself.
This conception of the higher term as beating the
lower on its own ground has been here affirmed
merely as a logical consequence of the principles
already laid down; but it can be verified as a familiar fact wherever a philosophical scale of forms is
recognized. If justice and expediency are adjacent
terms in a scale of moral values, as we sometimes
think them to be, it would follow that in order to
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89
secure expediency we must pass beyond mere expediency and rise to the level of justice; and this is
a thought so familiar to us all that it is current as a
proverb, honesty is the best policy. If, as St. Paul
believed, law is given for the better ordering of life,
and grace is something of the same general kind but
a higher term in the same scale, it is no paradox
that grace should perform exactlywhat lawpromised
to perform but did not. If inference stands higher
than judgement in a scale of the forms of thought,
it is natural that inference should first give us what
mere judgement cannot give, but ought to give if it
is to be reallyjudgement: knowledge, as opposed to
mere opinion.
31. Each term in the scale, therefore, sums up the
whole scale to that point. Wherever we stand in the
scale, we stand at a culmination. Infinity as well as
zero can thus be struck out of the scale, not because
we never reach a real embodiment of the generic
concept, but because the specific form at which we
stand is the generic concept itself, so far as our
thought yet conceives it. The proximate form, next
below where we stand, is from this point of view at
once the alternative possible way of specifying this
concept, and the wrong way of specifying it; opposite to the way which we think the right way, and
therefore opposite to the concept itself. What it
endeavours to present as the whole of the concept
is in reality an element within that whole, which, as
an element in the culminating form, is reaffirmed
in that form. All lower stages in the scale are
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telescoped into this situation. They are in fact
summed up in it twice over: once falsely, in the
proximate specification, which misinterprets their
significance and combines them into a false unity,
and once truly, in the culminating form.
32. This explains the overlap of classes in a philosophical genus. The higher of any two adjacent
forms overlaps the lower because it includes the
positive content of the lower as a constituent element within itself. It only fails to include the lower
in its entirety because there is also a negative aspect
of the lower, which is rejected by the higher: the
lower, in addition to asserting its owncontent, denies
that the generic essence contains anything more, and
this denial constitutes its falsehood. Thus, utilitarianism is right to regard expediency as one form
of goodness; its mistake is to think that there is
nothing in even the highest forms of goodness that
cannot be described in terms of expediency; and
therefore a better moral philosophy would reaffirm
utilitarianism while denying one part, this negative
part, of its doctrine.
The lower overlaps the higher in a different
sense: it does not include the higher as part of
itself, it adopts part of the positive content of the
higher, while rejecting another part. Utilitarianism,
for example, claims much of the contents of better
moral theories as sound utilitarian doctrine, but dismisses the rest as so much error or superstition.
What is true of utilitarianism as a specific kind of
moral theory is true also of expediency as a specific
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91
kind of goodness. Duty rejects expediency in the
sense of refusing to accept it as even a legitimate
kind of goodness, and regarding it rather as the inveterate enemy of morality, but reaffirms it in the
sense of accepting it, when modified by subordination to its own principles, as a constituent element
in itself. Thus duty and expediency overlap: a
dutiful action always has its own expediency, and
an expedient action to that extent partakes of the
nature of duty.
33. These considerations not only show how an
overlap of classes is possible, but make it clearer
than before what exactly this overlap is. It is not
merely that some dutiful actions are expedient, leaving a margin of expedient actions that are not dutiful and dutiful actions that are not expedient. All
dutiful actions are expedient, for duty as the higher
specification always and necessarily reaffirms the
lower; and the lower not sometimes but always partiallyand incompletelyaffirms the higher. Theoverlap
consists in this, that the lower is contained in the
higher, the higher transcending the lower and adding
to it something new, whereas the lower partially coincides with the higher, but differs from it in rejecting this increment. Thus the overlap is essentially
not, as we took it to be in our first rough survey of
the ground, an overlap of extension between classes,
but an overlap of intension between concepts, each
in its degree a specification of their generic essence,
but each embodying it more adequately than the one
below.
IV
DEFINITION AND DESCRIPTION
i. INthe twoforegoingchapters I havetried to show
that the doctrines of classification and division, as
contained in traditional logic, are neither simply
true nor simply false when applied to the concepts of
philosophy; but that they have been framed rather
with an eye to the peculiar structure of the scientific
concept, and must be modified in certain ways before
they can be applied to the philosophical. In this
chapter I shall argue that the same is true of definition. I am here discussing what is called real, as
opposed to verbal, definition: not the definition of
words but the definition of concepts.
It has generally been held in the past that philo^
sophical concepts can and ought to be defined. It
was in fact by insisting upon definition that Socrates
is believed to have won his unique place in the history of philosophical method. But there is a curious
paradox in our accounts of what Socrates taught.
He believed that all philosophical concepts ought to
be defined, but this belief expressed not an achievement but an ideal in the light of which he wasforced
to admit that he knew nothing except his own ignorance. For, challenging himself to produce adequate
definitions of philosophical concepts, he found himself unable to do so.
2. The examples which we possess of Socrates'
search for definitions make it clear that, when he

93
asked himself or his pupils to define a concept, the
model which he held up for imitation was definition as it exists in mathematics. This no doubt
accounts for his failure ; and it also accounts for the
tendency which exists at the present time to deny
that philosophical concepts admit of definition. It is
pointed out that when we attempt to define a philosophical concept either we introduce into the definition the term to be defined, and so commit the
formal fallacy of circulus in definiendo, or else, avoiding that danger, we fare worse and fall into the
material falsehood of substituting in the definition
another concept for that which we set out to define.
All this is true and unanswerable if definition is
taken to mean what it means in mathematics ; and
if the word definition is by custom of language confined to that meaning, the philosophical concept
must be called indefinable. But this is a dangerous
doctrine. It leaves philosophy defenceless against
any one who chooses to claim a perfect and infallible
knowledge which, since it cannot be expressed in
words, he need not be at the trouble of stating. The
incentive given by such doctrine to careless thinking
and obscure expression, and the handicap it lays
upon candid and critical philosophizing, make it
a serious danger to thought. A doctrine need not
be false because it is dangerous; but its danger is
a warning that its credentials should be examined
with scrupulous care before it is accepted.
They will not bear examination. The word to
define and its cognates are legitimately but not
94
exclusively used in this special sense. To define is
literally to fix the limits of a plot of land or the like,
to show where one thing begins and another ends,
or in generalto discriminate or distinguish. A person
asked to define his position, in an argument, is being
asked to remove ambiguities from a statement of
it which, implicitly or explicitly, he is understood
to have made, and thus make it clearer and more
precise. A photographic image is said to be illdefined when the degree of blurring is more than
can reasonably be permitted. In these ordinary or
common-sense uses of the word, it is implied that
definition is a matter of degree : to define is not to
make absolutely definite what was absolutely indefinite, but to make more definite what was to some
extent definite already.
3. As applied in exact science, definition carries
a special meaning. Definitions here define absolutely.
A person possessing a definition knows the essence
of the concept perfectly, one who does not possess
it does not know that essence at all. In order that
this should be possible, two conditions must be fulfilled. First, the essence must be something capable
of final and exhaustive statement, and therefore
sharply cut off from mere properties. Secondly, an
equally sharp line must be drawn between knowing
something and not knowing it. Owing to the differences in the structure of their concepts, both these
conditions are fulfilled in exact science, neither in
philosophy.
A definition in exact science states the essence as

95
distinct from the properties ; these, which flow logically from the essence, are stated in theorems. The
exposition of the concept as a whole thus consists of
definition and theorems taken together. The reason
why it can be divided into these two parts is that,
owing to the logical structure of the concept, one
part can be expounded without any fear that it may
have to be reconsidered when we come to expound
the rest.
4. Suppose there were a kind of concept which
could not be so divided as to be expounded in this
way: a kind of concept in expounding which the
later part of the exposition, instead of depending
upon the earlier as upon a fixed point, served to
qualify or explain the earlier. In the case of such
a concept no line could be drawnbetween definition
and theorems; the entire exposition would be a
statement at once of its essence, and of its properties
regarded as the elements constituting that essence.
This would be a definition, for it would state the
essence; the concept would remain undefined only
in the sense that there would be no one phrase or
sentence which could be taken out of its context
and called the definition.
This is the case in philosophy. It must be so, if
the species of a philosophical genus overlap; for
essence and property are two species of attribute,
and definitions and theorems are two corresponding
species of exposition; in a philosophical context,
therefore, these species willoverlap. And experience
of philosophical thought shows that it is so. An
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essay on aphilosophical concept like justice does not
ordinarily begin with a definition of the concept and
go on by deducing theorems about it; it consists from
beginning to end of an attempt to expound the concept in a statement which may properly be described
as an extended and reasoned definition.
5. The second condition of definition, in the
special sense in which exact science uses the word, is
that there should be an absolute difference between
knowing a concept and not knowing it. In exact
science there appears to be this difference. At the
beginning of a lesson, it may never have occurred
to the pupil that there can be a twelve-sided regular
solid. In the course of the lesson he may come to
know that there is such a thing, and that its name
is dodecahedron. His knowledgeof its essence is now
complete, however much he has still to learn about
its properties.
6. Suppose there were a kind of knowledge in
which a distinction existed between knowing better
and knowingworse,but nonebetween knowing absolutely and not knowingat all. In pursuing this knowledge, we should begin not with utter ignorance of
the subject-matter or any part of it, but with a dim
and confused knowledge, or a knowledge definite
enough in some parts but confused in others, and
in others fading away to the verge of complete
nescience. In advancing our knowledge of these
things we should say, not 'I have discovered something that I never knew before', but 'I have cleared
up my thoughts about this matter, and seethat what

97
I once thought about it was a confused mixture of
truth and error.' In this kind of knowledge there
would be no need for definitions like that of the
dodecahedron, for there would be no occasion on
which we were absolutely ignorant of any concept
contained in its subject-matter; nor any possibility
of them, for we could never come to a point at which
our knowledge concerning the essence of a concept
could be described as complete.
This also is the case in philosophy. It must be
so, if the philosophical concept is specified in a scale
of forms; for knowledge itself, as understood in
philosophy, will form such a scale, in which all ignorance is a lower or more rudimentary kind of knowledge, and the zero of absolute ignorance is never
reached. And any one with any experience of philosophy knows that in fact it is so. The beginner in
philosophy finds himself listening to discussions
about right and wrong, truth and error, pleasure and
pain, and the like. If he said to his teacher, 'I do
not knowwhat right and wrong are; please give me
a definition of them before proceeding with the discussion,' the teacher would reply, 'I amtrying to give
you a definition of them as fast as I can; and if you
did not learn in the nursery enough about the nature
of right and wrong to follow my discussion, you had
better go back to the nursery again.' For in all
philosophical study we begin by knowing something
about the subject-matter, and on that basis go onto
learn more; at each step we re-define our concept
by way of recording our progress; and the process
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can end only when the definition states all that the
concept contains.
7. Definition as thus understood resembles the
definition of exact science in stating the concept's
essence ; and that, after all, is the essence of definition. But there are some traditional rules of definition
which it will honour more in the breach than the
observance : namely those (there are several in the
text-books) which apply only to the special case of
exact science. Thus, if judgement is defined as the
reference of an ideal content to reality, this may be
criticized on the ground of circularity, because to
refer means to judge ; but that is a fault only if the
definition is addressed to a person who has never
thought about the nature of judgement. To a person
who has already thought about a given concept, definitions of it which formal logic would condemn
as circular, metaphorical, or obscure may be of the
utmost value.
8. In stating an essence which is identified not
with one selected part of the concept but with the
concept as a whole, philosophical definition resembles the descriptions which take the place of definitions in empirical science. A person asked to describe
an elephant or a comet--not an individual elephant
or an individual comet, but the concept--would aim
at completeness: he would try to include in his
exposition all the attributes properly included in
the concept. This exposition of an empirical concept cannot be accurately divided into exposition
of essence (definition) and exposition of properties

99
(theorems), because the logical connexions upon
which that divisionrests are lacking. There is no one
attribute of a comet or an elephant from which we
can deduce allthe rest; we do not sufficiently understand the way in which their various attributes are
interconnected; and so, from our point of view,
these attributes tend to form a mere aggregate in
which certain elements are found together without
any reason why they should be together. This tendency is no doubt opposed by another, tending to
connect the attributes into a logical whole ; so that
the description of an empirical concept is in general
an ambiguous thing : partly it approximates to the
exposition of a mathematical concept in which some
one attribute is essential and the others flow from
it; partly it approximates to a mere enumeration
of attributes which in actual experience are found
together, we cannot tell why.
The exposition of a philosophical concept has
a certain resemblance to this. Both alike aim at
completeness and renounce the attempt to select
one element and call it essence, leaving the rest to
be deduced from it. But they renounce this for
opposite reasons. An empirical description does
so because we do not well enough understand the
logical structure of the concept; a philosophical exposition, because we understand it too well to rest
content with a separation which must to a great extent be arbitrary. We may, if we like to insist on
this resemblance, say that a philosophical exposition describes its subject-matter; but that would be
ioo
misleading unless it were made clearthat describing
in this case means not merely enumerating the items
of which the subject-matter is composed but expounding them in such a way as to exhibit their
connexions.
To follow such an exposition means gradually
building up in one's mind the conception which is
being expounded; coming to know it better and
better as each new point is made, and at each new
point summing up the whole exposition to that
point. The thought of the subject-matter is thus
gradually becoming clearer and more complete.
But this is not a mere change in degree. It must
be a change in kind also. The fresh points are not
merely closer and closer approximations to the
truth, like fresh decimal places ; they are qualitatively new as well; and hence the phases through
which the definition passes in its growth are not
only new in degree, as we come to know the concept better, but new in kind, as we come to grasp
fresh aspects of it. The various phases will therefore constitute a scale of forms, beginning with a
rudimentary or minimum definition and adding
qualitatively new determinations which gradually
alter the original definition so as to make it a better
and better statement of the concept's essence: a
statement, at each step, complete as far as it goes,
and expressing a real and necessary specification of
the concept.
9. To define a philosophical concept, therefore,
it is necessary first to think of that concept as speci-

101
fying itself in a form so rudimentary that anything
less would fail to embody the concept at all. This
will be the minimum specification of the concept,
the lower end of the scale ; and the first phase of the
definition will consist in stating this. Later phases
will modify this minimum definition by adding new
determinations, each implied in what went before,
but each introducing into it qualitative changes as
well as additions and complications. Finally, a phase
will be reached in which the definition contains,
explicitly stated, all that can be found in the concept ; the definition is now adequate to the thing
defined and the process is as complete as we can
make it.
This definition of a philosophical concept by
means of a scale of forms is a method repeatedly
used throughout the history of philosophy; it will
suffice to quote a few of the most familiar examples.
Plato in the Republic sets himself the task of defining the 'city' (there is no word in ordinary English
that adequately translates noXis). He begins by offering a definition of the 'minimum city' (di/ay/ccuoTarq
noXis), which is reduced to a minimum in two ways :
first all functions other than economic are ignored,
and then the economic functions are reduced to the
barest development necessary to sustain life. He
then proceeds to develop the concept, first by adding luxuries to necessaries, and then by adding to
the economic function the military and political;
and the concept becomes complete when all these
have been considered singly and the relations
io2
between them worked out in detail. It is instructive
to remember that Aristotle modified Plato's definition chiefly by taking the minimum one stage lower.
Plato assumed that a family is not a city at all, and
that the minimum city consists of a number of producers each with a family of his own; Aristotle finds
the germ of political life within the family itself, and
tracesaprogressive evolutionofthe conceptof'society'
(Koivcovta) from that germ to its fullest realization in
the complete city state.
Aristotle understood the method well; he not only
uses it himself, for example in his methodical exposition of the nature of life,1 he criticizes Plato for
not having used it enough; for, says he, Plato's
Socrates laughed at Gorgias for offering a whole
series of specific forms of 'virtue' when asked for a
unitary definition of Virtue'; but the Socratic attempt at a unitary definition was even more faulty,
neglecting as it did the specific forms of the concept.
Accordingly,Aristotle spaces out the generic concept
of 'virtue' on a scale in which the first specific form
considered is the lowest, that of the slave (the context is political), and so an ascent is made--roughly
and unsystematically,it is true--to the higher forms.2
10. One example from modern philosophy will
suffice. In the Grundlegung zurMetaphysik derSitten,
Kant sets himself to answer the question what the
word good means when applied in the specifically
moral sense to a good man or a good act. His answer
falls into three main stages. First, he argues that a
1 De Anima.
* Politics, 1259 B, 20 seqq.

103
good act is one in which we obey a rule conceived
as universally binding. This is the minimum definition of a good act, not the whole definition; it is
soon modified so as to appear in a second and more
elaborate form : a good act is one in which we treat
human nature as an end in itself. This is more
elaborate because it is in effect the same definition modified by adding to the notion of objective
rationality (a universal rule) the notion of subjective
rationality (human nature as rational and therefore
demanding the same kind of respect which we give
to rationality as such). The third definition introduces a further complication, namely the idea of
other rational beings treating us in the same way in
which we treat them; thus the second definition,
reciprocally applied, becomes the third: a good act
is one in which we act as members of a kingdom of
ends, or society in which every one is both subject
(as respecting the wills of others) and sovereign (as
counting upon the same respect in them). Hegel,
who used this method throughout his philosophical
works, might be suspected of having borrowed it
from the Greeks, but the same suspicion cannot fall
on Kant, who was very little influenced by Greek
thought. He rediscovered it for himself by developing the methods he had learnt from the Cartesians;
and it is in fact to him, rather than to the Greeks,
that his successors owed it.
V
THE PHILOSOPHICAL JUDGEMENT:
i. THEforegoing chapters have dealt, not exhaustivelybut perhapssufficiently forthe reader's patience,
with some of the chief points in which the universals
or concepts of philosophy differ from those of exact
and empirical science. According to the doctrine of
traditional logic, which on this matter need not here
be disputed, the concept is a logical element only
found within something more complex, called a
judgement or proposition ; and this, therefore, is the
subject that next demands our notice. The procedure will be as before : to ask how the judgements
or propositions of philosophy (the two words may be
taken, for the present purpose, as synonymous) differ
from those of science in respect of logical structure.
The traditional theory ofjudgement falls into four
sections under the heads of quality, quantity, relation, and modality. This chapter will be devoted to
quality and quantity; that is, it will discuss the way
in which the terms affirmative and negative, universal
and particular, apply to the judgements of philosophy. In the following chapter, relation will be considered. Concerning modality I have nothing to say
except what is said by implication in the chapters
next after that.
2. According to quality, judgements are divided
I
into affirmative and negative. It has already been
THE PHILOSOPHICAL JUDGEMENT

105
remarked in an earlier chapter that these classes
always to some extent overlap: many judgements,
perhaps all, contain both an affirmative and a negative element. But in the case of philosophical statements the relation between affirmation and negation
is peculiarly intimate. On a matter of empirical fact
it is possible, when asked for example 'where did I
leave my purse?' to answer 'not in the taxi, I am
sure', without having the least idea where the purse
was actually left. That negative judgement contains
affirmative implications; for example, 'if you had
left your purse in the taxi I should have noticed it';
but these do not include an affirmative answer to the
question which has been answered in the negative.
In philosophy this is not so. The normal and
natural way of replying to a philosophical statement
from which we dissent is by saying, not simply 'this
view seems to me wrong', but 'the truth, I would
suggest, is something more like this', and then we
should attempt to state a view of our own. This
view certainly need not be on the tip of our tongue ;
it may be something with which our mind, as
Socrates would say, is pregnant, and which needs
both skill and pains to bring it to birth; yet we feel
it quick within us ; and unless we have that feeling
we have no right to meddle with the question that
is being discussed; no right, and if we have the
spirit of a philosopher no desire.
3. This is not a mere opinion. It is a corollary of
the Socratic principle (itself a necessary consequence
of the principle of overlapping classes) that there is
4033
p
io6
in philosophy no such thing as a transition from
sheer ignorance to sheer knowledge, but only a progress in which we come to know better what in some
sense we know already. It follows from this that
when we discover a new truth we recognize it as
something which we have always known ; and that
when we are still in pursuit of such a truth weknow
already, if we understand the nature of philosophical
thought, that we are only relatively and not absolutely ignorant of it.
4. Consequently we can never in philosophy decline, except temporarily and provisionally, the duty
of giving our own affirmative answer to any question
which others have answered in ways that we regard
as false. To reject one account of a philosophical
matter is to accept the responsibility of giving a
better account of it; and hence in philosophy, whatever may be the case elsewhere, it is a rule of sound
method that every negation in this special sense
implies an affirmation. This rule may be called the
principle of concrete negation, and the neglect of it
the fallacy of abstract negation.
5. There is also a principle of concrete affirmation
and a corresponding fallacy of abstract affirmation.
Every affirmative judgement no doubt contains
some negative elements; but in a philosophical
judgement there is a peculiar intimacy in the relation
between the two kinds of element. The negative
elements give point to our affirmations by indicating
what exactly they are intended to deny. For every
philosophical statement is intended to express the

107
rejection of some definite proposition which the
person making the statement regards as erroneous.
In non-philosophical thought this is not necessarily
the case. When I say 'the molecule of water contains
two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen' or 'the
battle of Hastings was fought in 1066',I am doubtless
denying something; but there is no one particular
error, such as that the formula ofwater is HO2 or that
the battle of Hastings was fought in 1087, against
which I am putting myself or my hearer on guard.
But when I make a philosophical statement, such as
that the species of a philosophical genus overlap, I
am denying something perfectly definite: the proposition that they are mutually exclusive. Thus a
non-philosophical judgement, when it affirms, denies
indiscriminately all the judgements incompatible
with it; a philosophical judgement, when it affirms,
picks out some one incompatible judgement, focuses
itself on the denial of that, and by this denial comes
to focus or define its own precise significance.
6. The reason for this lies in the logical structure
of the concept. Any judgement predicates a concept,
and whenever we affirm one specific concept we deny
the other specifications of the same genus. 'The
book which I am looking for is green'; here, what
is denied is that the book is blue, brown, or any
other specific colour. Where the generic concept is
non-philosophical, as here, the affirmation of one
specific form involves the indiscriminate denial of
all the rest, for their structure is that of a group
of co-ordinate classes where each excludes each and
io8
therefore any one excludes all the rest, none more
than another. But where the generic concept is
philosophical, specified in a scale of forms of which
the judgement is intended to affirm the highest
(which it always is, because every one necessarily
conceives the highest specific form known to him as
the true form of the generic concept, and so affirms
that), its denial of all the inferior forms is summarized in one denial, namely that of the proximate
form; since each summarizes the whole scale up to
that point, and the denial of that involves the denial
of all that it summarizes. What is true in the proximate form, and therefore in all the lower forms, is
still contained in the highest form ; hence the proximate form as contrasted with the highest is nothing
but a compendium of all the errors which in asserting the highest form we mean to deny.
Hence the statement that a philosophicalassertion
whenever it affirms something definite also denies
something definite, records not a mere fact observed
in our experience of philosophy, but a principle of
method. Empirically, cases can perhaps be found
in which a philosopher makes an assertion with no
very clear idea of what he means to deny. But if so,
he is committing the fallacy of abstract affirmation;
and though it is doubtless possible to think what is
substantially true while yet thinking in terms of this
fallacy, the truth is attained not because of, but in
spite of, the principles employed in the search.
7. The principle of concrete affirmation, as the
denial of this fallacy, can be applied in two ways.

109
As applied to one's own thought, it runs: 'If you
want to be clear as to what you are asserting, be
clear as to what you are denying.' In other words,
it is never enough to state your aim in a special
philosophical inquiry by saying that you wish to
discover the truth about a particular subject; this
must always be further defined by adding that you
wish to discover what exactly is wrong with this
or that view of it. And this implies that without
systematic and painstaking analysis of false views,
to discover where they are false, there is in philosophy no reaching any truth that is worth reaching.
The principle also applies to our comprehension
of others' thoughts. Here it runs thus: 'In reading
or listening to a philosopher, never be content to
ask yourself what he means to affirm, without at the
same time asking what he means to deny.' It is of
great importance to observe this rule in our philosophical reading; important because difficult; for
the great philosophers of the past, whose works
stand like islands out of continents otherwise submerged by the waters of time, have formed their
own views by criticizing others that have not come
down to us except so far as we can reconstruct them
from these same criticisms. Yet, if we cannot understand what the doctrines were which a Plato or a
Parmenides meant to deny, it is certain that to just
that extent we are unable to grasp what it was that
he meant to affirm.
It does not follow that every philosophical assertion is directed against some view which some one
i io THE PHILOSOPHICAL JUDGEMENT

actually holds. A view need not have been affirmed,
in order to be worth denying; all that is necessary
is that it should be plausible, a view for which there
are reasons, though not sufficient reasons. This
implies that the rejected view must seem plausible
to the person who rejects it; so that, if its rejection
implies controversy, it is a controversy not so much
between two philosophers as within the mind of a
single one: a dialogue, as Plato called it, of the soul
with itself. In confirmation of this, one often finds
philosophical writers of intelligence qualifying their
controversial passages by saying: The view to which
I object is, on the face of it, the view of such and
such a person; but if I am mistaken in thinking he
holds it, let me be understood as dissenting not from
a philosopher, but from a philosophy.'
8. Taking these two principles together, it may
be said that whereas outside philosophy ajudgement
is either affirmative or negative, though not exclusively either, since each may have in it elements
of the other, in philosophy there is such a balanceof
the two that no properly weighed and considered
judgement is more affirmative than negative or more
negative than affirmative. The affirmative judgement
in philosophy runs thus: S is P and not Q; the
negative thus: S is not Q but P; where P and Q
are equally definite and specific answers to the same
question : what is S ? The peculiarity of the philosophical judgement in respect of quality, then, lies
in the peculiar intimacy of the relation between its
affirmative and negative elements, which is of such

111
a kind that P cannot be validly affirmed while Q is
left indeterminate, nor Q validly denied while P
is left indeterminate.
2
9. In respect of quantity, judgements are traditionally divided into universal, particular, and singular. The judgements of philosophy, like those of
science, are universal; but we have to ask whether
there may not be some special shade of meaning
expressed by the term universal in this context.
The species universal, particular, and singular
naturally overlap ; the universal judgement that all
men are mortal does not exclude, it includes, the
particular judgement that some men are mortal and
the singular judgement that this individual man
Socrates is mortal. These three elements introduce
differentiations into its significance, even considered
as a universal judgement: as a pure universal, it
means that man as such is mortal; as a universalof
particulars, it means that every kind ofman is mortal;
as a universal of singulars it means that every individual man is mortal. These are not so much three
kinds of universal judgement as three elements
present in every universal judgement whether in
philosophy or anywhere else.
0o. But these three elements are differently related
in different types of universal judgement. There
is one kind of thought in which the determining
element is the singular. Each individual instance of
S is found on examination to be P; and, since we
cannot think this a mere coincidence, we regard
ii2
ourselves as justified in thinking that they are P only
because they are S ; that is to say, S as such is P.
Here the singular element is primary, the universal
secondary. A universal judgement of this kind is
called a generalization. It is a common and indeed
indispensable type of judgement, although logicians
have frowned upon it as inductio per enumerationem
simplicem.
A second type begins not from the singular but
from the particular: primarily it judges that each
particular kind of S is P, and thence it goes on to
judge that S as such is P. This is the type of
universal judgement which is normal in empirical
science, where the importance of the plurality of
instances towards establishing a universal proposition lies not in their numerical difference, as in generalization proper, but in the specific differences
between them.
A third type takes the universal element as primary : we begin by thinking that S as such is P,
and this is seen to involve the particular, that any
specific kind of S is P, and the singular, that each
instance of S is P. This is the type of universal
judgement which obtains in exact science. When
we assert a property of a triangle, we assert it ordinarily in the illustrative case of an individual triangle
which is also a triangle of a particular kind; but our
assertion in no way rests either on its individual or
on its particular features, but only on those which
belong to it as a triangle; that is, the assertion is
primarily made about triangles as such.

113
n. Inphilosophicaljudgements, universal asthey
are, the same three elements are necessarily present;
but none of these three types of structure will serve.
Let us look at them in turn.
Suppose a philosopher is in the act of making up
his mind to a universal judgement, for example that
acts are right in so far as they promote happiness. If
this judgement were in the nature of ageneralization,
the procedure in forming it would be first to observe that many individual right acts promote happiness, and then to presume that their being right is
either identical, or in some way specially connected,
with their 'felicific' property. But no competent
philosopher argues in this way, andwithgood reason;
for since the concept in question is a philosophical
one,the acts which he describes (no doubt correctly)
as right may also be, for example, expedient or
benevolent; and it may be this, rather than their
Tightness, that is connected with their promoting
happiness. In short, to frame a universal judgement
in philosophy by generalization from instances is to
commit the fallacy of identified coincidents ; and if
the instances are so selected as to avoid that, the
result will be the fallacy of precarious margins.
Suppose, then, he proceeds as in empirical science:
treats the concept asa genus, distinguishes itsvarious
species, and looksfor the generic essence in the shape
of something common to these species and indifferently present in them all. Thus, trying to determine
the general nature of knowledge, he might assume
that anything which could be called knowledge
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Q
ii4
at all, however humble or elementary a kind of
knowledge, could be relied upon to exhibit that
general nature as well as any other. Philosophers
as it were instinctively avoid this way ofapproaching
a question, because they feel that the full natureof
anything is exemplified only in the highest forms of
it; what is to be found in the lowest forms is not
the generic essence in its completeness, but only the
minimum form of it; and because the lower in a
scale of forms is in some sense opposed to the higher,
they realizethat a theory proceeding on this assumption islikely to find itself maintainingthat the highest
forms of knowledge, morality, art, and so forth are
not forms of knowledge and the like at all.
Thirdly, suppose he begins by convincinghimself
that the concept with which he is dealing has certain
attributes, and goes on by forcing these attributes
upon every specification and every instance of it;
for example, suppose he begins by deciding that
action as such is the pursuit of the agent's own
pleasure, and in the light of this universal proposition insists that a martyr going to the stake must be
at bottom pursuing his own pleasure, though admittedly that is not the most natural account of his
action. The reason why this procedure is bad philosophy is that although a certain hedonistic element
does run like a thread through every form ofaction,
it plays different parts in different forms : in some
it is a predominant motive, in others it is present
only as something to be fought against. Any statement about a generic concept which is true as

115
applied to one of its specific formsis likelyto require
modification before it can be applied to any other;
without such modification it is likely to be not so
much false as misleading, perverse, or wantonly
paradoxical.
12. In order to avoid these three fallacies it is
necessary, not to look for a fourth way of arranging
the three elements of the universal judgement, but
to use all three methods at once, checking each by
means of the others. All three types of structure are
to be found in the philosophicaljudgement; what is
not found is any sufficiency of one to the exclusion
of the rest. In framing a philosophical judgement,
therefore, we take up each aspect in turn, and reserve
judgement on each until we are satisfied with all.
Philosophy can and does generalize, or assert of
the concept as such what is found in its single instances ; but subject to the provision that, by itself,
this is only a clue towards answering its question,
not a substantive answer. Thus, examples seem to
show that certain constant features appear in all
works of art; but this by itself does not answer
the question whether they are features necessarily
belonging to art as such.
Again, like empirical science, philosophy can and
does argue that if differentspecies of a concept agree
in a certain respect this should be a feature belonging to the generic essence; but this again gives only
clues, not substantive definitions; they must be
checked by arranging the species in a scale and
showing that the features of the generic essence
116
shine out more clearly as the scale reaches its culmination.
Lastly, philosophy like exact science aims at determining a priori the characteristics which belong of
necessity to its concepts as such in their true universality. But in philosophy every statement of this
kind is merely tentative until it has been verified by
reference to the facts : a philosophical theory must
show that what it claims as necessaryin the concept
is possible in every specification of the concept and
actual in its instances.
But we are already touching the frontier that
separates the theory of judgement from the theory
of inference; and the problems of method that have
been briefly indicated in theseparagraphsmust await
a fuller discussion until we come to consider the relation of philosophical reasoning to that of deductive
and inductive science.
VI
PHILOSOPHY AS CATEGORICAL
THINKING
i. IN order to assert a proposition in mathematics,
I
it is not necessary to believe that the subject of discourse has any actual existence. We say that every
square has its diagonals equal; but to say this we
need not think that we have any acquaintance with
actual squares. It is no shock to our geometrical
knowledge to realize that the perceptible objects
passing by that name are only approximately square,
and that if by any chance--which is infinitely unlikely--one of them did happen to be a true square,
we could never tell it from the rest, and therefore
could not base our geometricalknowledge on special
study of it.
Nor need we hold that, though in the perceptible
world no squares are to be found, they exist in an intelligible world. That is a metaphysical conception
full of difficulties; a thing far harder to conceive than
the notions of elementary geometry; a theory to
which the Greeks were driven by reflection on their
mathematical knowledge,but onewhichto the Greeks
as a people, and to each of ourselves as individuals,
came after agrounding in mathematics, not before it.
What is necessary is not to believe that a square
anywhere or in any sense exists, but to suppose it.
Given a rough chalk diagram, we must be able to
n8
PHILOSOPHY AS
suppose these broadand crookedmarksto be straight
lines, suppose these lines equal, and suppose each to
be connected with its neighbours by a right angle.
We can suppose what we know to be not the case;
we can even suppose what weknowto be impossible,
whether accidentally, as we can suppose Napoleon
to have won the battle of Waterloo, or inherently,
as when we invite some one to 'suppose that a fairy
gave you three wishes'. In mathematics we frame a
supposition and then see what follows from it; this
complex thought is called in logic a hypothetical
proposition; and it is of such propositions that the
body of mathematical knowledge is composed.
Here I distinguish the body of mathematical
knowledge from certain other things, necessary perhaps to its existence, but not part and parcel of it.
For example, it may or may not be necessary, in
geometry, to perceive or imagine a figure; I do not
ask whether it is or not; but if it is, this perceiving
or imagining is only a conditio sine qua non of geometrical knowledge, not geometrical knowledge itself. It may or may not be necessary to understand
certain logical principles according to which geometrical reasoning proceeds ; if it is, the knowledge
of these principles is not geometrical knowledge. If
the reader distinguishes betweenmathematical knowledge itself and all these accessories or conditions
or concomitants of it, he will, I think, be satisfied
that mathematics itself consists exclusively of hypothetical propositions.
2. Empirical science notoriously deals not with
CATEGORICAL THINKING
119
abstractions, but with facts ; and therefore its universal statements might be thought wholly devoid
of this hypothetical element. And certainly, when a
pathologist or bacteriologist talks of tuberculosis, he
is talking of facts that are actual, of a disease that
exists and from which people really die. But the
scientist is not concerned simply with bare facts in
all their multiform variety. He is also and especially concerned with a certain framework into which
he fits them, grouping them round fixed points and
treating these fixed points as foci of his thought.
The framework is no doubt altered from time to
time, at the suggestion of the facts themselves;
there is no question of forcing the facts into a frame
constructed altogether a priori; but without such
a framework there is no science. Tuberculosis is
not a name for all the infinite varieties of clinical
phenomena which the tubercle bacillus can produce, it is the name of a specific disease or 'entity',
a certain set of standard symptoms with a standard
history, to which all these varieties more or less conform. The entity of tuberculosis is thus one fixed
point in a framework, or system of medicine, into
which the individual cases encountered in medical
practice must be fitted.
Now, just as a man, after plotting a number of
observations on squared paper, may summarize
their distribution by drawing a curve which represents their general tendency but need not pass
through a single one of the points actually plotted,
so the writer of a medical text-book may compose
izo
PHILOSOPHY AS
the description of a standard case of a certain disease,
bearing in mind the varieties which cases referred
to that disease exhibit in clinical experience, but
not describing any case that he has ever actually
seen. And this description may be of service in the
training of other physicians, even if they too never
meet a case corresponding precisely, point by point,
with the text-book. But the business of the text-book
is to describe this or that disease, as an entity; therefore the individual cases, in so far as they do not
exactly correspond with the text-book description,
are not exactly instances of the entity described:
they are complicated cases, or abnormal cases, or in
one way or another not true cases of the disease as
described in the text-book. This is not because the
text-book is a bad text-book; it is a necessary consequence from the very notion of a specific disease;
nor is it a peculiarity of medical science; it belongs to
the logical structure of empirical science in general.
There is no difference in this respect between the
conception of a specific disease and the conception
of a specific plant.
It follows that the universal propositions laid down
by empirical science have a hypothetical character
not unlike that of mathematical propositions. The
statement in a medical or botanical text-book that all
cases of tuberculosis or all rosaceae have these and
these characteristics, turns out to mean that the
standard case has them; but it does not follow that
the standard case exists ; it may be a mere ens
rationis; and since that would not disturb the truth
121
of the original statement, it follows that the original
statement was in intention hypothetical.
As in exact science, so here in empirical, the body
of knowledge must be distinguished from certain
necessary or fortuitous accompaniments of it. The
accurate observation and record of facts is most
necessary to empirical science ; and the propositions
in which these facts are expressed are categorical:
for example, that the patient's temperature has been
this or that at such and such a time. And the application of scientific knowledge to individual cases
involves another kind of categorical proposition : for
example, that the patient is suffering from tuberculosis. But the body of scientific knowledge is
expressed in propositions that are logically intermediate between these two orders of categoricals,
the statements of fact which are its data and the
statements of fact which are its applications; and
this body itself consists of hypothetical propositions.
3. Philosophical thought differs in this respect
both from mathematics and from empirical science.
The body or substance of it is composed of propositions which instead of being merely hypothetical
are in essence and fundamentalintention categorical.
I hope in the sequel to satisfy the reader not only
that this has been the view taken by philosophers
themselves, but also that it follows necessarily from
the hypothesiswhich we have agreed to explore. But
before doing this I must shortly consider certain
reasons which might induce him, on encountering
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R
122
PHILOSOPHY AS
the opinion just expressed, to reject it out of hand
as an obvious error.
First, we sometimes call a statement categorical,
meaning onlythat it ismade with conviction. In that
sense, the proper place for categorical judgements is
in connexion with subject-matters where it is either
easy to arrive at the truth, or imperative to make up
our minds even on evidence logically inadequate;
but there is perhaps no subject in which truth is so
hard to find as in philosophy, and it is a subject in
which no practical urgency can excuse a hasty judgement ; it istherefore the last place in the world where
we can afford to be, in that sense, categorical. All
our judgements in philosophy should be peculiarly
cautious, tentative, slowly formed, and expressed
with all possible reserve and qualification. But I am
using the word categorical in the logician's sense, not
the popular sense just defined. The question I am
discussing is what logical form philosophical knowledge would take if we could achieve it, not the
question how easy it is to achieve.
Secondly,a person who understands the essentially
hypothetical nature of all scientific knowledge, and
this is a conception with which most people in our
time are familiar, naturally tends to think that the
same is true of philosophy. It is a reasonable presumption that whatever is true of science is true of
philosophy, and merely as a presumption it deserves
all respect; but every one admits that there are
differences between them, and the subject of this
essay is the general question what these differences
123
are. I must therefore ask the reader to approach
this particular aspect of the question with an open
mind.
2
4. That the aim of philosophy is in the last resort
to formulate its thought categorically, is a principle
repeated by philosophers of all times in the most
varied manners. Thus Plato, discussing the difference
between dialectic and mathematics in a passage
already quoted (Rep. 511 B), explains that whereas
the starting-points of mathematical reasoning are
mere hypotheses, dialectic demands for itself a 'nonhypothetical starting-point' (a^ awn-oBeros).
The
question how Plato thought that this demand could
be satisfied is full of difficulties and obscurities; but
the purport of the demand itself is clear.
Aristotle states the same principle in a way so
different that we can hardly suppose him to be copying Plato. In the work which has given its name to
the science of metaphysics, he defines his subjectmatter as reality or being (Met. 993 A 30: ?j Trepl
rfjs
aX^deias 6ea>pla, 1003 A 2O: emon^Mj TIS TJ OewpeiTO ov fjov).
In modern times one might quote Kant's dictum
that in a critique of pure reason 'anything in the
nature of a hypothesis mustbe treated ascontraband',
or Hegel's declaration that the subject-matter of
philosophy is no mere thought and no mere abstraction but die Sache selbst. But obiter dicta cannot
decide philosophical questions; indeed, if they could,
there would be some plausibility in the notion that
what we are discussing in philosophy is not dieSache
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PHILOSOPHY AS
selbst but only thoughts, the thoughts that philosophers have had about it.
5. More to the point than a collection of opinions
would be a consideration of one famous argument
which has stood in the forefront of metaphysical
discussion for nearly nine hundred years : the Ontological Proof.
Plato had long ago laid it down that to be, and to
be knowable, are the same (Rep. 476 E) ; and, in
greater detail, that a thought cannot be a mere
thought, but must be a thought of something, and
of something real (WTO?, Farm. 132 B). The neoPlatonists had worked out the conception of God in
the metaphysical sense ofthe word--a being ofwhom
we can say est id quod est, a unity of existence and
essence,aperfect being (pulcherrimumfortissimumque)
such that nihildeo melius excogitari queat (the phrases
are from Boethius, De Trinitate).
Anselm, putting these two thoughts together, the
original Platonic principle that when we really
think (but when do we really think, if ever ?) we
must be thinkingofarealobject, and theneo-Platonic
idea of a perfect being (something which we cannot help conceiving in our minds; but does that
guarantee it more than a mere idea ?), or rather,
pondering on the latter thought until he rediscovered
the former as latent within it, realized that to think
of this perfect being at all was already to think of
him, or it, as existing.
Divesting his argument of all specially religious
or theological colouring, one might state it by saying
125
that thought, when it follows its own bent most
completely and sets itself the task of thinking out
the idea of an object that shall completely satisfy
the demands of reason, may appear to be constructing a mere ens rationis, but in fact is never devoid
of objective or ontological reference.
Anselm's argument, that in conceiving a perfect
being we are conceiving a subject possessed of all
positive predicates, including that of existence, so
that to think of this is alreadyto think of it as existing,
is an argument open to objection on the logical
ground that existence is not a predicate; but the
substance of his thought survives all such objections,
no less than it survives the baseless accusation that
he was trying to argue from a mere thought to the
existence of its object. He was careful to explain
that his argument applied, not to thought in general,
but only to the thought of one unique object, idquo
mains cogitari nequit; the slightest acquaintance with
writers like Boethius and Augustine is enough to
show that he was deliberately referring to the
absolute of neo-Platonic metaphysics; and in effect
his argument amounts to this, that in the special
case ofmetaphysical thinking the distinction between
conceiving something and thinking it to exist is a
distinction without a difference.
So understood, Anselm's argument was by no
means either ignored or rejected in the later Middle
Ages; his successors, if they criticized it at all, did
so either because they found difficulties in its religious or theological implications, or else because
126
PHILOSOPHY AS
they regarded its truth and certainty as being of an
ultimate and fundamental sort that can only belong
to some kind of axioms which precede and underlie
all appeal to argument: a criticism whose validity
cannot be here considered, since it belongs to a subject discussed in later chapters of this essay.
Of all the legacy of medieval thought, no part
was more firmly seized upon than the Ontological
Proof by those who laid the foundations of modern
thought. Descartes, the acknowledged father of
modern philosophy, made it the mainspring of his
system ; it was the Ontological Proof that gave him
the power to move from the pin-point of momentary
subjective consciousness to the infinite process of
objective knowledge. Spinoza, who has been acclaimed as the purest representative of the realistic
scientific spirit of the modern world, placed it even
more prominently; and it remained the foundationstone of every successive philosophy until Kant,
whose attempt to refute it--perhaps the only occasion on which any one has rejected it who really
understood what it meant--was rightly regarded by
his successors as a symptom of that false subjectivism
and consequent scepticism from which, in spite of
heroic efforts, he never wholly freed himself. With
Hegel's rejection of subjective idealism, the Ontological Proof took its place once more among the
accepted principles of modern philosophy, and it
has never again been seriously criticized.
6. Students of philosophy, when once they have
learnt that the Proof is not to be dismissed as a
127
quibble, generally realize that it proves something,
but find themselves perplexed to say what exactly
this is. Clearly it does not prove the existence of
whatever God happens to be believed in by the person who appeals to it. Between it and the articles
of a particular positive creed there is no connexion,
unless these articles canbe deduced apriori from the
idea of an ens realissimum. What it does prove is
that essence involves existence, not always,but inone
special case, the case of God in the metaphysical
sense: the Deus sive natura of Spinoza, the Good
of Plato, the Being of Aristotle : the object of metaphysical thought. But this means the object of philosophical thought in general; for metaphysics, even
if it is regarded as only one among the philosophical
sciences, is not unique in its objective reference or
in its logical structure ; all philosophical thought is
of the same kind, and every philosophical science
partakes of the nature of metaphysics, which is not
a separate philosophical science but a special study
of the existential aspect of that same subject-matter
whose aspect as truth is studied by logic, and its
aspect as goodness by ethics.
Reflection on the history of the Ontological Proof
thus offers us a view of philosophy as a form of
thought in which essence and existence, however
clearly distinguished, are conceived as inseparable.
On this view,unlike mathematics or empiricalscience,
philosophy stands committed to maintaining that its
subject-matter is no mere hypothesis, but something
actually existing.
iz8
PHILOSOPHY AS
7. It may further be shown that this doctrine is
deeply embedded in the whole fabric of the philosophical sciences as they actuallyexist; so that it is
impossible to engage, however slightly, in the study
of logic, for example, or ethics, without committing
oneself to the view that one is studying a subjectmatter that actually exists, and therefore aiming at
a knowledge only expressible in categorical propositions. No proposed method of reforming these
sciences, whether by changing their method or by
redefining their subject-matter, will rid them of
this characteristic.
Logic is concerned with thought as its subjectmatter. It has a double character. On the one hand
it is descriptive, and aims at giving an account of
how we actually think; on the other it is normative, and aims at giving an account of the ideal of
thought, the way in which we ought to think. If
logic were merely descriptive, it would be a psychology of thinking; like all psychology, it would abstract from the distinction of thoughts into true and
false, valid and invalid, and would consider them
merely as events happening in the mind. In that case
its purpose would be to provide a kind of anatomy or
physiology of the understanding, and its aims, structure, and methods wouldconformon the whole to the
pattern of empirical science. Throughout its long history logic has never taken up this position. It has no
doubt ignored the distinction between true and false
judgement, but it has done this only in pursuanceof
its conception of itself as the theory of inference ; the
129
distinction between valid and invalid reasoning it
has never ignored.
But neither is logic merely normative. A purely
normative science would expound a norm or ideal
of what its subject-matter ought to be, but would
commit itself to no assertion that this ideal was anywhere realized. If logic were a science of this kind,
it would resemble the exact sciences; it would in
fact either be, or be closely related to, mathematics.
The reason why it can never conform to that pattern is that whereas in geometry, for example, the
subject-matter is triangles, &c., and the body of the
science consists of propositions about triangles, &c.,
in logic the subject-matter is propositions, and the
body of the science consists of propositions about
propositions. In geometry the body of the science
is heterogeneous with its subject-matter; in logic
they are homogeneous, and more than homogeneous,
they are identical; for the propositions ofwhich logic
consists must conform to the rules which logic lays
down, so that logic is actually about itself; not about
itself exclusively, but at least incidentally about itself.
It follows that logiccannot be in substance merely
hypothetical. Geometry can afford to be indifferent
to the existence of its subject-matter; so long as it
is free to suppose it, that is enough. But logic cannot share this indifference, because, by existing,
it constitutes an actually existing subject-matter to
itself. Thus, when we say 'all squares have their
diagonals equal', we need not be either explicitly or
implicitly asserting that any squares exist; but when
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PHILOSOPHY AS
we say 'all universal propositions distribute their
subject', we are not only discussing universal propositions, we are also enunciating a universal proposition ; we are producing an actual instance of the
thing under discussion, and cannot discuss it without
doing so. Consequently no such discussion can be
indifferent to the existence of its own subject-matter;
in other words, the propositions which constitute the
body of logic cannot ever be in substance hypothetical. A logician who lays it down that all universal
propositions are merely hypothetical is showing a
true insight into the nature of science, but he is
undermining the very possibility of logic; for his
assertion cannot be true consistently with the fact
of his asserting it.
Similarly with inference. Logic not only discusses,
it also contains, reasoning; and if a logician could
believe that no valid reasoning anywhere actually
existed, he would merely be disbelieving his own
logical theory. For logic has to provide not only a
theory of its subject-matter, but in the same breath
a theory of itself; it is an essential part of its proper
task that it should consider not only how other
kinds of thought proceed, and on what principles,
but how and on what principles logic proceeds. If
it had only to consider other kinds of thought, it
could afford to deal with its subject-matter in a
way either merely normative or merely descriptive;
but towards itself it can only stand in an attitude that is both at once. It is obliged to produce,
as constituent parts of itself, actual instances of
131
thought which realize its own ideal of what thought
should be.
Logic, therefore, stands committed to the principle of the Ontological Proof. Its subject-matter,
namely thought, affords an instance of something
which cannot be conceived except as actual, something whose essence involves existence.
8. Moral philosophy, by a different path, reaches
the same goal. Like logic, it cannot be either merely
descriptive or merely normative. Had it been merely
descriptive, it would have contented itself with giving
an account of the various ways in which people
actually behave. This would have been a psychology or anthropology ofconduct, in which no account
could have been taken of moral ideals and the conformity, or lack of conformity, to them which action
displays. There is a science of this kind, and it has
its place in the system of the empirical sciences;
but it is not moral philosophy.
Had it been merely normative, it would have set
aside all question how people actually behave, and
endeavoured to answer the question howthey ought
to behave. But people do not need, and would not
tolerate, such guidance from moral theorists.
To
decide how he ought to behave is the task of the
agent himself; a task in which the moral theorist
can help, if he can, only because he too is a moral
agent, and the moral agent in his degree already a
moral theorist.
It would be better, combining a normative with a
descriptive conception, to define moral philosophy
132
PHILOSOPHY AS
as giving an account of how people think they ought
to behave. Here the facts and the ideals of conduct
are alike included in the subject-matter; but the
ideals might seem to be reduced to a mere newkind
or order of facts. To correct this, it must be borne
in mind that the question how people think is not in
any philosophical science separable from the question whether they think rightly or wrongly; and
thus moral philosophy has to face the responsibility
either of holding that people are always right when
they think they ought to do some act, or of instituting some kind of comparison and criticism of
moraljudgements. In the first alternative, the view
is taken that the moral ideal already exists as an ideal
in the minds of all moral agents ; in the second, that
it partially so exists, and more completely as (with
or without help from moral philosophy) they try to
think out more clearly what they believe their duties
to be. In either case, the science is both normative
and descriptive; it describes, not action as opposed
to ideas about action, but the moral consciousness;
and this it is forced to describe as already being in
some sense what it ought to be. This in turn will
affect the account which it gives of action; for no
theory of moral ideals is conceivable which does not
admit that to some extent moral ideas affect action.
Quite apart, then, from any argument which might
be directed to showing, perhaps legitimately, that
the moral philosopher in describing virtue must himself, in his work as a thinker, display some at least
of the virtues he describes--sincerity, truthfulness,
133
perseverance, courage, andjustice--it is clearthat the
moral ideal, which it is his business to conceive, cannot be conceived as a mere thought wholly divorced
from existence. Here too the Ontological Proof
holds good: the subject-matter of ethical thought
must be conceived as something whose essence involves existence.
3
9. Without considering cases drawn from other
philosophical sciences, I may now venture to state
generally that the body of any philosophical science
consists of categorical propositions and not merely,
as in the case of exact and empirical science, of
hypothetical. This is not to deny that philosophical
thought involves hypothetical elements. The hypothetical judgements of science, as we have seen,
involve various kinds of categorical judgements as
accessories or conditions of their substantive being ;
and conversely if the body of philosophical knowledge consists of categorical judgements it must at
least be surrounded, as it were, by a scaffolding of
hypotheticals ; I mean that, in order to decide that
a certain theory is true, our affirmation of this theory
must be supported by considering what the consequences would have been, had any of the alternative
theories been true. In this sense the working-out of
conclusions from purely hypothetical premisses is a
very necessary part ofphilosophical thinking, though
a subsidiary part.
But it is not enough to say that in science the
body of knowledge is hypothetical with subsidiary
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PHILOSOPHY AS
categorical elements,andviceversa in philosophy; for
in philosophy the relation between the two elements
is more intimate than that contrast would imply.
Just as the principle of concrete affirmation lays it
down that the negative element in a philosophical
assertion, so far from being a separate judgement, is
a determining factor which gives point and precision
to the significance of the affirmation, so the hypothetical element, which I have described as a kind
of scaffolding to the categorical body of thought, is
really an integral part of that body itself, though a
part subsidiary to the categorical. I need hardly add
that the whole comprising these two parts is not an
aggregate ; for each is necessary to the other, and is
what it is by virtue of its relation to the other.
10. This view of philosophy as categorical thinking, even apart from its agreement with the pronouncements of philosophers, its connexion with the
argument ofthe OntologicalProof, and its verification
in the actual procedure of the philosophical sciences,
is a necessary consequence of the overlap of classes,
and therefore follows from the hypothesis of the
present essay. Categorical and hypothetical are two
species of judgement; according to the hypothesis,
therefore, in non-philosophicaljudgements they will
constitute separate classes, so that the universal
judgements forming the body of science can be
purely hypothetical; in philosophical judgements
they will overlap, so that those forming the body of
philosophy cannot be merely hypotheticalbut must
be at the same time categorical.
135
This, however,states the position too simply; and
if the reader will bear with me I will correct it. The
concept of judgement is already a philosophical concept, and therefore an overlap of its specific forms
can never be wholly avoided. Even in science, therefore, the overlap exists; and this I have already
recognized by showing that the purely hypothetical
propositions forming the body of science involve
certain categorical elements which are necessary to
their being but form no part of their essence qua
science; these are, as it were, a solid structure of
facts and truths upon which the pliant body of
scientific hypothesis leads a parasitic life. But in the
case of philosophical judgements the overlap becomes peculiarly intimate; the categorical element
is no longer something external to the hypothetical,
even if necessary to it; both elements alike are
of the essence of philosophy as such. As before,
what we find here is a peculiar fusion of logical
elements which elsewhere are found either separate
or united in a relatively loose and external way. If
it is asked whether the distinction is that between a
closer and a looser union, or that between absolute
union and absolute separation, I may perhaps reply
that in principle that question has been answered
in discussing the idea of a scale of forms.
11. A complete theory of knowledge would have
to go much further at this point. It would have to
considernot onlythe formal distinction ofphilosophy
from science, but the relation of each to the other
as substantive bodies of knowledge. It would have
136 PHILOSOPHY AS CATEGORICAL THINKING

to ask whether the hypothetical element in philosophy is identical with science itself, or whether it is
something peculiar to philosophy; and whether the
categorical skeleton upon which are supported the
hypothetical tissues of scientific thought proper is
wholly or partly identical with philosophy. It would
also have to discuss the theory of history, and the
relation between the categorical singular judgement
which composes the body of historical thought and
the categorical universal of philosophy. But for the
purpose of this essay enough has been said about
the logical relation of the judgement when it has been
shown that the philosophicaljudgement is in essence
and substance categorical.
VII
TWO SCEPTICAL POSITIONS
i. As in science and in history, soin philosophy the
ideal of thought demands that no proposition be
admitted into the body of knowledge except for
sufficient reason, or, in logical terms, as the conclusion of an inference. The question must therefore
be raised: by what special kind of reasoning or
inference are the propositions of philosophy established?
There are persons who think that this question
admits of no answer; who believe, that is, that no
such thing as constructive philosophical reasoning
is possible. Like most sceptics, they do not adopt
this belief lightly; they are driven to it after serious
thought, and their doubts deserve serious consideration. They agree in disclaiming,whether for themselves merely, or for their own generations, or for
the entire body of human thinkers everywhere and
always, any philosophical doctrine supported by constructive philosophical argument; but beyond this
they differ. Some deny that they have any philosophical doctrine at all, and hold that philosophical
reasoning is not constructive but critical, its function
being solely to destroy false philosophies. Others
claim to have a philosophical position, but think
that the judgements that go to make it up arebased
not on philosophical arguments but on science or
common sense.
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l
2. 'I do not know,' say the first of these, 'what
the right answer to any philosophical question is ;
but I think there is work to be done in showing
that the answers usually given are wrong. And I
can prove that one answer is wrong without claiming to know that another is right; for my method is
to examine the answers given by other people, and
to show that they are self-contradictory. What is
self-contradictory is, properly speaking, meaningless ; what is meaningless cannot mean the truth;
and therefore by this method I can preserve a purely
critical attitude towards the philosophy of others,
without having any philosophy of my own. As
to that, I neither assert nor deny its possibility;
I merely, for the present, suspend judgement and
continue my work of criticism.'
A philosophy which defines its task in this way I
propose to call a critical philosophy, meaning by that
a philosophy which sets out to be critical as opposed
to constructive. A critical attitude, in this sense,
differs from the attitude of abstract negation described in the fifth chapter in the way in which inference differs from judgement: to negate a view is
simply to assert its falsity, to criticize it is to give
reasons for this assertion. In using the term critical
here I am inevitably suggesting a comparison with
the Critical Philosophy of Kant; but what I have
to say on this subject must not be understood as
directed to Kant's address; for criticism, in his
view, was not the whole of his philosophy; it is

139
directed rather at one of the various schools of
thought which have divided Kant's inheritance.
3. The merits of such an attitude need no emphasis. But it has defects of two kinds. First, it
betrays a defect of temper. It is characteristic of
acute and accomplished thinkers, used to studying
closely the work of great writers, who have become
disheartened and inclined to dismiss all philosophical thought as futile. This failure of heart is bound
up with a failure of sympathy towards the writers
whom they criticize. To study a philosophy with
the avowed intention, not of asking how adequately
it deals with its subject-matter, but solely oflooking
for inconsistencies in its logical form, implies a withdrawal of interest from that which most interested
the author, the subject-matter, and a consequent
alienation of sympathy from him which makes it
impossible to estimate his work fairly. Criticism of
this kind will bear most hardly on writers who are
genuinely grappling with the intricacies of a difficult
problem, and, since the critic claims no knowledge
of the subject-matter, they will get from him no
credit for the insight which they have shown ; it
will be most lenient to those who, abandoning all
attempt at profound or close study of the matter in
hand, content themselves with a one-sided account
of some partial aspect of it. Consequently criticism
of this kind is not only based on a defective scaleof
values, but its judgements run grave risk of being
inversely related to the merits of the authors judged;
and even if that danger is averted its general temper,
HO
instead of beingsympathetic, as good criticism should
be, can hardly escape being superficial and to some
extent frivolous.
4. Defects of temper, I may be told, are irrelevant in philosophy, which, as the pursuit of truth,
cares only for logical values, not moral. So be it.
The philosopher I am criticizing is no less open to
criticism in his logic. He asserts that he has no philosophical doctrine of his own; but this assertion is
belied by his practice, which implies two things, each
in effect a constructive philosophical position.
He has condemned the philosophies of other
people for showing certain characteristics which, he
thinks, are faults. This implies a conception of what
a constructive philosophy should be, and the use of
this conception as a standard by which to condemn
existing philosophies. Now, the idea of a philosophy
is itself a philosophical idea ; and the critic who
uses such an idea as a standard is under an obligation to state it and defend it against criticism.
He has also a conception of what philosophical
criticism should be; and this is a standard whose
claims he thinks he can and does satisfy in his own
philosophical practice. But this again is a philosophical conception; and hence a philosophical
critic is bound to give us his theory of philosophical criticism, and satisfy us by positive or constructive argument that his principles are sound and that
his practice faithfully follows them.
Scepticism in this form, as in all its forms, is in
reality a covert dogmatism; it contains positive

141
theories of the nature, method, and limitations of
philosophical thought, but disclaims their possession and conceals them from criticism. Hence it
is both inconsistent, or false to its own professed
principles, and--intentionally or unintentionally-dishonest, because applying to others a form of
criticism which in its own case it will not admit.
2
5. A second form of scepticism agrees with the
first in holding that philosophy cannot establish
positive or constructive positions; but holds that
we are not on that account necessarily ignorant of
the right answers to philosophical questions. These
answers are supplied, it maintains, not by philosophical argument but by science and common sense.
For example: is there amaterial world ? are there
other minds beside my own ? Yes ; common sense
tells me that these things are so; philosophical
thinking is neither needed to convince me of them,
nor able to demonstrate them, if I am so foolish as
to doubt them or so disingenuous as to profess a
doubt I cannot feel.
On the other hand, there are many questions,
traditionally referred to philosophy for decision,
which, because they cannot be decided by science or
common sense, cannot be decided at all. Is there a
God ; shall we have a future life ; what is the general
nature of the universe as a whole? Becausewe do not
know the answers to these questions independently
of philosophizing,philosophy cannot give them.
i42
What, then, is left for philosophy to do ? It has no
longer, as on the critical view, the function of controverting error ; for example, it does not demolish
the false view that duty is merely expediency and
leave us ignorant indeed but free from delusions;
for, according to this view, we know what duty is,
and always did know ; if any one asks what it is, we
can reply 'it is what you and I and every one know
it to be'. Nothing is left for philosophy except the
task of analysing the knowledge we already possess :
taking the propositions which are given by science
and common sense, and revealing their logicalstructure or 'showing what exactly we mean when we
say', for example, that there is a material world.
6. Like the other, this form of scepticism is the
fruit of much philosophical learning and labour;
both alike are historical products of a study of the
Critique of Pure Reason and the problems of which
it is the classical discussion; both are worthy of
respect and, as we shall see, within limits true. But
the analytic view is hardly more defensible than the
critical.
If a person holding a view of this type were asked
to state his philosophicalposition, hewould probably
begin by stating a series of propositions belonging
to the sphere of common sense, which some philosophers have, wrongly as he thinks, questioned or
denied.1 But the task of philosophy, on this view,
1 I think that Professor G. E. Moore takes this line in his
'Defence of Common Sense' (Contemporary British Philosophy,
vol. ii, pp. 193 seqq.); for here, on pp. 195-6, he states a proposi-

is to analyse such propositions as these; and consequently a philosopher holding this view would
presumably describe as part of his philosophical
positionnot onlythe dataof analysis, the propositions
of common sense, such as 'this is a human hand',
but the results of analysis, such propositions as
'there is a thing, and only one thing, of which it is
true both that it is a human hand and that this surface is a part of its surface'. But the analytic view
of philosophy implies a third class of propositions :
neither the data of analysis (the common-sense propositions to be analysed),nor its results (the propositions intowhich these are resolved),but the principles
according to which it proceeds; some ofthemlogical,
such as that a complex proposition can be divided
up into two or more simple ones, some metaphysical,
such as (to take one involved in the above instance)
that sense-data are not mental entities which somehow represent physical objects, but are actually parts
of physical objects.
The analytic philosopher, invited to state his
philosophical position, would perhaps include in the
statement propositions ofallthese three classes. But,
on such a view of philosophy, it is not quite clear
143
tion which on p. 207 he calls the first point in his philosophical

position; and the gist of this proposition, which I venture to
abbreviate--it is nearly 200 words long--is as follows: Many
other human beings beside myself have frequently known, mutatis mutandis, what I know when I say such things as, I am a
human being, or, the mantelpiece is nearer to me than the bookcase. I suppose Professor Moore to think that this proposition
is vouched for by common sense.
i44
that data, results, and principles have an equal right
to be included. The data of analysis are only the
subject-matter upon which philosophical thought
exercises itself, as logic may exercise itself on propositions made (for example) by a botanist. That
all oaks are dicotyledonous is not a part of logical
theory; the logician is not, as a logician, called upon
either to assert it or deny it. He merely studies its
logical structure. Hence, if the philosopher's task
is neither to attack nor to defend the statements
of common sense, but only to analyse them, such a
statement as 'there are other human beings with
experiences like my own' cannot be a part of his
philosophical position; it is only an example of the
things about which he philosophizes ; and to think
of it as an element in his philosophical position is to
relapse into that very view of philosophy as criticizing or corroborating common sense against which
this theory is expressly in revolt.
The results of analysis would seem to be in the
same case. For the analysis of a common-sense
proposition states what exactly that proposition
means ; and if the datum of analysis is a commonsense proposition, its result, being identical with it
in meaning, is a common-sense proposition also.
The one class of propositions which beyond any
doubt ought to be included in the analytic philosopher's statement of his position is that which
comprises the principles on which analysis proceeds.
These principles constitute a theory concerning
the nature and method of philosophy; this is a

145
philosophical theory, and a constructive one; and,
therefore, whatever else the analytical philosopher
ought to tell us when asked to state hisphilosophical
position, it is clear that his first duty is to expound
these. Yet he, like the critical philosopher, not only
neglects this duty but makes a merit of neglecting it and asserting that he has no constructive or
systematic theory of his own.
7. That exponents of this view ought not to
neglect the duty of examining or even stating their
own principles is admitted by some of themselves.
Dr. L. S. Stebbing, in a recent paper on 'The Method
of Analysis in Metaphysics' (Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1932-3, pp. 65-94), reminds us that
the analytic method has been much used by wellknown philosophers in this country for over twenty
years, but that none of them has 'seen fit to raise'
the questions upon what presuppositions it rests and
whether they can bejustified (p. 75). In raising these
questions Dr. Stebbing claims (and justly, so far as
my acquaintance with the previous literaturegoes) to
be breaking new ground. But although in the paper
quoted there is an attempt to state these presuppositions, it is admitted that 'nearly all the great philosophers of the past' have implicitly denied them
(p. 66),and no attempt is madeto rebut these implicit
denials or to offer the smallest reasonwhytheassumptions should be granted. It is even admitted that 'so
far from being certainlyjustified, [they] are not even
very plausible' (p. 92) and the strongest argument in
favour of any is that 'I see no reasons against it'.
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:46

Here again, therefore, the conclusion must be that
analytical philosophy, like critical philosophy, is a
method resting on principles; that these principles
constitute or imply a constructive philosophical position, and that the oneindisputably philosophical task
which exponents of the analyticmethod haveimposed
upon themselves is the task of expounding and justifying this position. But a great part of the attraction
of the analytic method lies in its claim to have done
away with the old idea of constructive philosophy ;
and the only comment which can now be made on
that claim is that analytic philosophy does indeed
involve a constructive philosophical doctrine, but,
true to its character as a form of scepticism, declines
the task of stating it.
8. It may be replied that these principles, even if
never openly stated and defended against criticism,
arenevertheless,intheworkingoftheanalytic method,
justified by their results. But, in the first place, the
exponents of that method are eager to assure us that
its results are very modest: that it can never solve
any of the problems which have been in the past--and by most people are in the present--regarded as
the main problems of philosophy: that, in short, the
prospect opened by the method 'seems at first sight
disappointing' (Russell,Our Knowledge of theExternal
World, p. 27). And secondly, our only reason for
accepting these results is that we accept the method
which yields them. An argument to persuade us
that people think or act in certain ways can be tested
a posteriori; if they do so act or think, the argument

14?
is to that extent confirmed. But an argument to
persuade us that when we say 'this is a human hand'
we mean 'there is a thing, and only one thing, of
which it is true both that it is a human hand and
that this surface is a part of its surface' is an argument which points to no new fact and therefore
cannot be verified by any a posteriori test.
9. Both these sceptical theories, therefore, break
down under examination, and both for the same
reason. Each disclaims a constructive philosophy ;
each claims to possess, not a body of doctrine, but
only a method : not a method of reaching positive
philosophical conclusions, but a method of doing
something else--in the one case, of demolishing false
philosophies, in the other, of deciding what exactly
we mean when we make a statement. They both
fail to recognize that methods imply principles, and
systematic methods, systematic principles ; and that
their professed scepticism is merely a veiled claim
to exempt these principles from criticism or even
from explicit statement, while assuming their truth
and sufficiency. While this state of things continues,
it cannot be allowed that the critical or'analytic
philosopher, however much we may value him as a
commentator or critic of the philosophy of others,
has evenbegun the task of formulating aphilosophical
position or programme of his own.
10. These two theories of the scope and method
of philosophy have been examined on their merits,
and shown to transgress the rules laid down by
themselves ; but they might have been rejected after
148
a much shorter examination. Each is in conflict
with the first principle of philosophical method
whose statement was the task of this essay's second
chapter; and had the writer been willing to presume on the reader's assent to that principle, the
criticism would have gone as follows.
The critical view assumes that an argument can
be destructive without being constructive. This
implies that constructive and destructive arguments
are two species of a genus; and in that case our
first principle tells us that in philosophy they will
overlap, and may overlap to any extent; in other
words, a philosopher developing a purely destructive argument is sure to be committing himself,
consciously or unconsciously, to a constructive position, and his only choice is whether this position
shall be explicitly and critically developed or surreptitiously assumed.
The analytical view assumes that there is not only
a distinction, which would be willingly conceded,
but a difference between knowing that this is a table
and knowing what I mean when I say that it is a
table. Asserting a proposition and analysing it are
species of a genus which is defined * as 'the attitude adopted towards' the proposition. But if in
the case of philosophy the species of a genus overlap,
asserting and analysing, however distinct, cannot in
1 W. E. Johnson, Logic, i. 6. Johnson does not there include
analysing among the attitudes he enumerates, but I imagine that
the text fairly represents the position as conceived by the school
of thought I am discussing.

149
philosophy be separated ; and a philosopher, invited
to affirm or deny agiven proposition, retains the right
to say 'I cannot tell whether I think this proposition true or false until I understand what it means'.
This is howtraditional philosophy has alwaysreplied
to invitations of this kind; and the whole contention ofthe analyticschool is that, in so replying, it has
been the victim of a confusion between assertion and
analysis. It must by now be clear that the confusion
exists solely in the mind of the analytic philosopher
who is arguing that, because the traditional philosopher says 'I cannot do A without doing B', he is
failing to distinguish A and B, when in reality he
is distinguishing them and refusing to separate
them. In short, the traditional procedure is sound,
and the advocate of analysis is not so much attempting to reform philosophical method as quarrelling
with it for being philosophical.
This method of criticism has not been adopted,
because although the reader, by the terms of our
compact made in the second chapter, has agreed to
accept these principles as hypotheses and to see
where they lead us, he has a right to demand that
on such a journey our position should be checked
from time to time by asking how the conclusions
derived from the original assumptions tally with
results otherwise obtained. It is easy to begin an
argument with assumptions containing some small
error which, as the argument proceeds, multiplies
itself at every step ; and it is an elementary precaution against this danger, to demand that the initial
ISO
assumption shallbe constantly verified by such crossreference. This principle is especially important in
philosophical argument because, as the preceding
chapter has contended, philosophicalthought knows
no mere assumptions, and therefore cannot proceed on the principle that the truth or falsity of its
initial hypotheses is a matter of indifference.
It was therefore desirable to show that these two
sceptical positions were not only to be condemned
as inconsistent with our agreed hypothesis, but could
be proved fallacious by their own standards. Such
verification of our original assumption may encourage the reader to persevere in the task of working
out its consequences, and also foreshadows the view
of philosophical reasoning which] will be stated in
the following chapter. When that has been done,
we shall see that the two theories criticized in this
chapter are both in a sense justified as expressing
some part of the truth, although by denying the
rest they reduce this partial truth to error.
VIII
DEDUCTION AND INDUCTION
i
i. IN considering the nature of philosophical inference it is convenient to begin by asking 'is it
deductive or inductive ?' This implies comparing
it with the deductive reasoning of exact science and
the inductive reasoning of empirical; and this
I shall try to do, subject to the warning given in
the first chapter (2. 6) that my business is not to
ask how reasoning is actually done in exact or empirical science, but how it ought to be done in
philosophy.
Three things canbe distinguished in allinference:
the data from which we argue, the principles according to which we argue, and the conclusions to which
we argue. In exact science the data are suppositions : for example, that ABC is a right-angled
triangle. The principles are the so-called axioms:
for example, that if equals be added to equals the
sums will be equal. The conclusions are inferred in
the sense of being demonstrated, that is, shown
to follow with perfect logical rigour from the data
according to the principles.
2. The axioms necessary to an exact science consist, it would seem, of two kinds. First, there are
axioms belonging properly not to the body of that
science, but to logic : these are the principlesaccording to which demonstration as such must always
iS2
proceed. Secondly, there are others belonging to
the science itself: in Euclid, for example, that two
straight lines cannot enclose a space.
The first or logical axioms are necessary to science,
but they are not part of science. They are necessary
to it in the sense that unless they were true the
science could not take a single step in advance; so
that although they maybe called its presuppositions,
they are not mere suppositions. They are not part
of it because they belong to logic, and the success
of the science which presupposes them does not in
turn confirm them. To confirm or to question them
is the business of logic. The argument of exact
science moves from these axioms in an irreversible
direction, and hangs with its wholeweight from them
as from a fixed point.
The second or special axioms form part of the
science, but a peculiar part. According to the older
view of exact science, they are known to be true,
but have the character--admittedly anomalous in
an exact science--of not requiring demonstration.
They are self-evident, or known to be true without
being proved; not only is it possible to see their
truth in this way (for demonstrable truths can
sometimes be seen, by a rather mysterious kind of
intuition, to be necessarily true, although we can
at the moment see no proof of them) but it is
the only way in which their truth can be seen;
they do not admit of any demonstration whatever.
Thus the certainly true propositions forming the
body of an exact science fall into two classes:

153
the indemonstrable, or special axioms, and the
demonstrable, or conclusions.
The main lines of this view are not, for our purposes, affected if it is maintained that the special
axioms are not known to be true, but only assumed.
The logical axioms cannot be merely assumed, for
(as was shown in the sixth chapter) a philosophical
proposition must always be categorical; we cannot
think as if the principles of thinking were true, for
if they were not true we should not be thinking.
But the special axioms may be regarded as mere
assumptions; and in that case we shall have to
say that the entire body of the science consists of
assumptions, but that these fall into two classes:
primary or fundamental assumptions, the so-called
special axioms, and secondary or derivative assumptions, the so-called conclusions.
3. In either case the argument has a property
which I shall describe by saying that it is irreversible. The conclusions are logically dependent on
the axioms; there is no reciprocal dependence of the
axioms on the conclusions: our attitude towards
the axioms is in no way affected by the discovery
that they lead to these particular results; on the
contrary, it is only because we accept the axioms
first, that we accept the conclusions to which they
lead.
This irreversibility is a necessary attribute ofexact
science : it can only argue forwards, from principles
to conclusions, and can never turn round and argue
backwards, from conclusions to principles, whether
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iS4
these are understood as special principles peculiar
to itself and forming part of its ownbody, or general
principles belonging to the body of logic. To guard
against a misunderstanding, it maybe remarked that
though the argument of an exact science can never
be reversible in respect of its principles, it may be
and generally is reversible in respect of its data;
given the axioms, which are equally necessary in
both cases, we can argue either that because the
sides are equal the angles at the base are equal, or
that because the angles at the base are equal the
sides are equal.
2
4. In its demand for close and cogent reasoning,
philosophy resembles exact science. Each alike
works on the principle that no conclusions may be
asserted for which valid and sufficient reason cannot be given. It is natural, therefore, that in its
inferential methods philosophy should present certain analogies with mathematics ; but it does not
follow that the methods are, or ever can be, identical
at every point.
One necessary difference is that the division of
axioms into those belonging to the science in question, and those belonging to logic, disappears. Logic
is a branch of philosophy, and not a branch separable from the others ; even if a person investigating
a problem in ethics could afford to say 'this point
in my problem I can entirely leave on one side, for
it is a logical point, not an ethical one', the question
would merely be deferred, for the philosopher as

155
such is obliged to study logic sooner or later. Consequently, whereas other sciences can neglect their
own logical presuppositions, philosophy cannot; and
therefore it has not two kinds of axioms, but only
one, namely the kind that form a part of its own
body.
5. But there is a second difference. The axioms
of philosophy, because they are philosophical propositions, must be categorically asserted ; they cannot be mere assumptions. This would seem to imply
that they are self-evident propositions, forming the
first principles of an irreversible deductive system of
thought. Is such a view tenable ?
If any one has ever held it, one would expect to
find it in the works ofthe great mathematician-philosophers of the seventeenth century; for probably no
one has ever had such motives or suchqualifications
for introducing mathematical methods into philosophy as Descartes and his successors.
6. When Descartes, dissatisfied with the results of
all systematic thinking before his own day, resolved
to begin again from the beginning, he did not explicitly distinguish the case of philosophy from
that of the other sciences ; and, as has been already
pointed out in the first chapter, the method on
which he undertook to work in the future was to be
applied to all three branches of knowledge--metaphysics, natural science, and mathematics--without
distinction, although it was admittedly a method
derived from mathematics. Ostensibly, therefore,
Descartes would seem an example, for good or ill,
156
of mathematical method applied to philosophy. But
when we forget his theory of method and turn to
his practice, we find that, when actually engaged
in philosophical work, Descartes was far too good
a philosopher to neglect the necessary differences
between philosophical and mathematical reasoning.
His first principle, 'I think, therefore I am', is
neither a self-evident truth nor an assumption.
Although a starting-point for all his metaphysical
reasoning, it is actually established, in the passage
where he first enunciates it, by a proof; and it appears on analysis that this is a proof of the peculiar
kind to which Kant was later to give the name of a
transcendental deduction. Convinced that a great
part of our fancied knowledge is error, Descartes
has set himself the task of challenging it in detail,
and doubting everything dubitable. 'I soon observed', he continues, 'that, determined as I was to
think everything false, it was absolutely necessary
that I who thought this should be something.'1
In Kantian language, the principle cogito ergo sum
is in this passage transcendentally deduced, that is,
shown to be the condition on which experience as it
actually exists, in this case the experience of systematic doubt, is alone possible.2 If I did not exist as
1 Discours dela Methode, quatriemepartie, adinit. 'Mais aussitot apres je pris garde que, pendant que je voulais ainsi penser
que tout etait faux, il fallait necessairement que moi qui le pensais fusse quelque chose.'
* Cf., e.g., Kritik d. r. Vernunft, Trans. Anal, ch. ii, 14,
'Ubergang zur trans. Ded. der Kat.', A 93, B 126: 'folglich
wird die objektive Giiltigkeit der Kategorien, als Begriffe a

157
a thinking being, I could not doubt. Even doubt of
my own existence is therefore a guarantee of my
existence. Whatever Descartes's explicit theory of
philosophical method may have been, here in practice he shows an entirely just sense of the difference
between that and mathematical.
It would be doing Descartes an injustice to suggest
that he himself was blind to this fact. His explicit
programme, as laid down in the Discours, no doubt
recognized only one method pour bien conduire sa
raison et chercher la ve'rite dans les sciences, and contained no hint that there might be a peculiar method
appropriate to the peculiar problems ofphilosophical
thought. A reader would naturallyinfer that his intention was to assimilate the method of philosophy
in every particular to that ofmathematics ; but when
this inference was actually drawn, and a correspondent, some years later, invited him to state hisviews
on certain metaphysical questions selon la methods
des ge'ometres, en laquelle vous &tes si bien verse, Descartes answered by acceding to the request, and thus
providing Spinoza with his model for a body of
priori, darauf beruhen, dass durch sie allein Erfahrung (der
Form desDenkens nach) moglich sei.' The same method applies
to principles: A 148-9, B 188 : 'Grundsatze a priori fuhren diesen Namen nicht bloss deswegen, weil sie die Grande anderer
Urteile in sich enthalten (i.e. are starting-points for reasoning)
sondern auch weil sie selbst nicht in hoheren und allgemeineren
Erkenntnissen gegriindet sind (i.e.cannot be deductively demonstrated). Diese Eigenschaft iiberhebt sie doch nicht allemal eines
Beweises . . . (this necessary proof is obtained) aus den subjektiven Quellen der Moglichkeit einer Erkenntnis desGegenstandes
iiberhaupt.
is8
philosophical doctrine ordine geometrico demonstrata,
but at the same time remarking that in one way
the method is ill suited to metaphysics, where, quite
otherwise than in mathematics, 'the chief difficulty
is to conceive the first notions clearlyand distinctly'.1
7. The full magnitude of that difficulty may not
have been realized until Kant awoke from his dogmatic slumber ; but it was never wholly overlooked
by the great successors of Descartes, who always
interpreted his precepts in the light of his practice.
The 'geometrical method' of Spinoza differs from
the method of geometry in the very point to which
Descartes had called his correspondent's attention.
As if to emphasize his own recognition of this point,
Spinoza has packed the whole ofAnselm's Ontological Proof, as restated by Descartes, into what purports to be his 'first definition', the opening sentence
of the Ethics. When he writes : 'By cause of itself I
understand that whose essence involves existence,
and whose nature cannot be conceived except as
existing,'3 he is doing something very different from
defining his terms more geometrico. His statement is
not a definition but a theorem: a philosophical position, and, as he well knew, an arguable and argued
position.
Leibniz does the same. In the epigrammatic
1 Deuxiemes objections (CEuvres, ed. Simon, p. 160); Reponses
aux deuxiemes objections (ibid., p. 182).
2 Ethics,part I, def. i. 'Percazwamsm'intelligoidcuiusessentia
involvit existentiam, sive id cuius natura non potest concipi nisi
existens.'

brevity of the Monadology he begins with two
clauses having the appearance of a definition and
an axiom, and together stating the conception of an
unextended and indivisible substance ;J but Leibniz
knew, and trusted his readers to remember, that this
was a conception which raised many of the most
ancient and disputed problems in philosophy, and
that he, like Spinoza, was beginning his treatise not
by denning his terms like a mathematician but by
laying down a whole metaphysical system in a nutshell, and not by stating a self-evident axiom but by
affirming a highly controversial theorem.
8. When, therefore, Kant laid it down that philosophy could contain no axioms, and that its first
principles required proof, but proof of a special kind;
when he attacked in principle and in detail the use
of mathematical methods in philosophy, and concluded that they could lead to nothing but 'houses
of cards'2; when Hegel, following Kant's lead,
pointed out that philosophy was in the peculiar
position of being obliged to justify its own startingpoint ; those contentions were not new: they were
familiar to the great mathematical philosophers of
159
1 '(i) La Monade, dont nous parlons ici, n'est autre chose

qu'une substance simple qui entre dans les composes; simple,
c'est-a-dire sansparties.
'(2) Et il faut qu'il y ait des substancessimples, puisqu'il y
a des composes; car le compose n'est autre chose qu'un amas
ou aggregatum des simples.'
1 K.R.V. A 727, B 755. 'Ich werde . . . zeigen . . . dass der
Messkiinstler, nach seiner Methode,in der Philosophic nichtsals
Kartengebaude zustande bringe.'
160
the seventeenth century, as they have always been
to all competent philosophers ; and if in their actual
practice the Kantians to some extent departed
from the method used by the Cartesians, taking more
pains to avoid the dangers of a too close assimilation
of philosophical thought to mathematical, they were
only insisting on differences which the Cartesians,
though they may have overlooked them in theory,
had never wholly ignored, even though they may
have missed some of their implications, in practice.
3
9. But what can be meant by saying that philosophy must justify its own starting-point? Plainly
it cannot mean that, before the work of substantive
philosophy can begin, there must be a preliminary
philosophy charged with the task of justifying its
principles. Thatwould be to support theworld onan
elephant, and the elephant on a tortoise: a procedure
which, as Kant came to see, is not adequately explained by calling the elephant Metaphysics and the
tortoise a Critical or Transcendental Propaedeutic.
If the first principles ofphilosophy are to bejustified,
they must be justifiedby that philosophy itself.
This can be done only if the arguments of philosophy,instead of havingan irreversible direction from
principles to conclusions, have a reversible one, the
principles establishing the conclusions and the conclusions reciprocally establishing the principles. But
an argument of this kind, in which A rests on B and
B rests reciprocally on A, is a vicious circle. Are

161
we to conclude that philosophy is in the dilemma
of either renouncing this characteristic function
and conforming to the irreversible pattern of exact
science, or else losing all cogency in a circular argument ?
10. The solution of the dilemma lies in a feature
of philosophical thought to which I have already
referred more than once: the Socratic principle that
philosophical reasoning leads to noconclusionswhich
we did not in some sense know already. Every
school of philosophical thought has accepted this
principle, recognizing that philosophy does not, like
exact or empirical science, bring us to know things
of which we were simply ignorant, but brings us to
know in a different way things which we already
knew in some way; and indeed it follows from our
own hypothesis ; for if the species of a philosophical
genus overlap, the distinction between the known
and the unknown, which in a non-philosophical
subject-matter involves a difference between two
mutually exclusive classes of truths, in a philosophical subject-matter implies that we may both
know and not know the same thing; a paradoxwhich
disappears in the light of the notion of a scale of
forms of knowledge, where coming to know means
coming to know in a different and better way.
Establishing a proposition in philosophy, then,
means not transferring it from the class of things
unknown to the class of things known, but making
it known in a different and better way. For example,
it is a relatively bad way of knowing a thing if we
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V
162
merely observe that it is so but do not understand
why it is so; a better way of knowing it would be
by observation and understanding together; and
if by seeing certain facts in the light of certain
principles we come to understand the facts and at
the same time to have visible confirmation of the
principles, this is a gain to our knowledge both of
the principles and of the facts.
11. Here philosophical thought shows a contrast
with that of the exact sciences. Our knowledge that
the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum
of the squares on the other two sides depends (Ispeak
for myself) on the proof. There are cases, as I have
already remarked, in which we intuitively apprehend the conclusion without any proof; but normally the proof is our only source of assurance that
the conclusion is true. In philosophy this is not so;
we know this normally without any proof at all; and
the service which the proof does for us is not to
assure us that it is so, but to show us why it is so,
and thus enable us to know it better.
Even the most ostentatiously deductive philosophical system, therefore, for example that of
Spinoza, can never be deductive in the sense in which
geometry is deductive. Spinoza did not wait for the
knowledge that 'he will be rejoiced who imagines
what he hates to be destroyed' until he had constructed the proof given in his Ethics (III, prop. xx).
On the contrary, he knew that, and perhaps all
the other substantive propositions contained in the
Ethics, before he ever conceived the idea of welding

163
them into a system, or inventing proofs for them
derived from a small number of first principles. The
effect of constructing his ethical system, and this is
true of philosophical systems in general, is to exhibit as a reasoned and ordered whole of interconnected knowledge what was already in substance
known before the work of philosophizing began.
12. If philosophy differs from exact science in this
way--the anticipation, as we may call it, of its conclusions by an experience that possesses them in
substance before its reasoning begins--other differences will follow: the chief being that in philosophy
the conclusions can be checked by comparing them
with these anticipations, and that by this checking
the principles at work in the reasoning can be verified. If this is so, the direction of the argument in
respect of principles and conclusions is reversible,
each being established by appeal to the other; but
this is not a vicious circle, because the word established here means raised to a higher grade of knowledge : what was a mere observation is now not
merely observed but understood; what was a merely
abstract principle is verified by appeal to facts.
This conception of philosophy, as reaffirming a
knowledge already possessed in substance before
we began to philosophize, raises certain difficulties,
and requires certain modificationsand developments
before it can be regarded as reasonably secure ; but
in the meantime its chief implication for the theory
of inferential method in philosophy may be summarized as follows.
164
If the substance of philosophical knowledge is
known to us, however dimly and confusedly, before
philosophical reasoning begins, the purpose of that
reasoning can only be to present it in a new form ;
and this will be a reasoned form, that is, the form
of a system constructed according to certain principles. The philosopher who unfolds such a system
is not spinning a web of ideas from the recesses of
his own mind; he is expressing the results of his own
experience and that of other people in a reasoned and
orderly shape; and at every step in his argument,
instead of asking one question only, as in exact
science, namely 'What follows from the premisses ?'
he has to ask another as well: 'Does that conclusion
agree with what we find in actual experience?' This
test is therefore an essential part of philosophical
reasoning, and any argument whose conclusioncannot be subjected to it is philosophically defective.
4
13. This has taken us a long way from the conception of philosophy as a deductive science. As we
now see it, the argument of a philosopher no longer
hangs with its whole weight on the starting-point,
it is supported throughout its texture by crossreferences to experience. Is it, then, in the last
resort, based on facts ? Is philosophy nothing but a
theory based on observation and experience, in short,
an empirical science ? In order to answer this question, we must consider what is meant by inference
in empirical science.

165
Inductive reasoning seeks to establish universal
propositions through an examination of individual facts. These facts are the data ; the universal
propositions are the conclusions ; and there are
also principles according to which the argument
proceeds. The data are empirically known by perception or the historical record of perception in
the past. The conclusion, at the beginning of the
process, must already be present in the form of an
hypothesis, to be tested by bringing it into relation
with the data. At first it is put forward merely as
a possibility; the aim of the process is to convert
it into a probability, the more probable the better.
It may become so highly probable as to be, for practical purposes, a certainty ; but there is a line separating even the highest probability from certainty in
the proper sense of that word, and this line the hypotheses of inductive reasoning can never cross. This
answers the question what, in empirical science, is
meant by the word establish ; it means, to establish
as probable.
The data, on the contrary, begin by being certain,
and never become anything else. The inductive
process adds nothing to this certainty, and takes
nothing away from it: it rests entirely on observation. It is true that errors of observation occur, and
that a conflict between a supposed
observation
and an established induction may lead us to correct
such an error; but if the conflict persists there can
be no question which must give way to the other.
The business of the induction is to conform with
166
the facts ; they in no sense depend upon it, it depends
upon them.
14. The principles of induction, like those of
exact science, are of two kinds. Some of them are
purely logical principles, which begin by being certain and can never become either more or less so as
induction proceeds. Others, when we come to consider them, prove to be not only assumptions but
assumptions having little or no inherent plausibility;
the most we can say for them is that they are not
known to be untrue, and that it is expedient to
assume them. Of these two kinds of principles,
the first are logically presupposed by all induction
whatever ; they therefore cannot be established by
inductive reasoning. Nor, in any case, could an inductive argument suffice to establish them; for being
logical principles they must be categorically affirmed,
and, as we have seen, the conclusions of induction
are never more than probable.
The second kind of principles (for instance, that
the future will probably resemble the past, or the
known the unknown) are necessary assumptions if
we are ever going to argue, as in inductive thinking
we always do, that because some S is P therefore
probably all S is P. But these principles are in no
sense confirmed by the successful conduct of the
arguments based on them. Unless we assumed them,
we could never conduct arguments of this kind at
all; but however long and however successfully we
go on conducting arguments of this kind, we always
know that these assumptions are assumptions and

167
nothing more. What is increased by the success
of our inductive inquiries is not the probability of
such principles as that the future will resemble the
past, but the probability of such hypotheses as that
fermentation is due to micro-organisms. The principles never appear as conclusions, even in the modified sense in which conclusions exist in inductive
thinking.
The logical movement of inductive thought is
therefore irreversible in the same sense as that of
exact science. The principles on which induction
rests receive in return no support from the inductive process itself. Either they are certain from
beginning to end, or from beginning to end they
are mere assumptions.
The process of thought in exact science, though
irreversible as regards its principles, may be reversible as regards its data (supra, 1.3 ad fin.}. In this
respect, inductive argument is not reversible ; for its
data are what they are because they enjoy the status
of facts vouched for by perception; and although
we can infer the existence of an unobserved fact
from reasons inductively established by the study
of similar facts, we only infer it (where to infer, as
always in the context of inductive thought, means
to establish as probable) and do not perceive it.
15. Although there is a resemblance, therefore,
between the initial knowledge concerning the subject-matter of philosophy which we possess before
we begin to philosophize, and the data of fact established by observation and experiment which we
168
possess at the outset of an inductive inquiry, there
are important differences between the two things.
In philosophy the initial knowledgeforms the substance of the final knowledge, the material out of
which the system is constructed. The very same
proposition which at first we knew to be true is
reaffirmed with proofs in the body of the system.
In empirical science the initial knowledge is not
the material out of which, but the basis on which,
the theory is built; thus the theory of cyclones
does not require for its statement an exposition of
the individual barometric or other observations on
which it depends.
Secondly, in empirical science the initial knowledge consists of individual facts ; but in philosophy,
since the initial knowledge is homogeneous with the
conclusions--otherwise the conclusions could not be
the initial knowledge raised to a higher grade--and
since the conclusions are universal propositions, the
initial knowledge also must consist of universal propositions. The data of philosophy are thus never
mere facts in the sense of individual events, individual objects, individual actions or the like; they are
always universal; for example, in the case taken
from Spinoza, the knowledge we ascribed to him before he began the work of systematic philosophizing
was not the individual fact 'So-and-so, who hates
such and such a thing, and imagines it to be destroyed, is pleased', but the universal proposition
'every one in these circumstances is pleased'.
Thirdly, the data of empirical science, as is natural

169
seeing that they are individual facts, areapprehended
by perception ; but the data of philosophy, if they
are universal propositions, cannot be apprehended
in that way ; they must be grasped by something in
the nature of what we call, as distinct from perceiving, thinking. If therefore we say that the initial
knowledge on which philosophy rests as its data is
arrived at by way of experience, we must add that
the term experience in this case carries a special
meaning : not the experience of a perceiver, but the
experience of a thinker.
16, Thus the initial knowledge or datum in philosophy is very different from what it is in empirical
science: different in its relation to the process of
reasoning, different in its own constitution, different
in the way in which we come to possess it. But the
differences do not end here. That which it undergoes, as our thought proceeds, differs also.
In empirical science we begin by perceiving that
the facts are so, and go on by forming a theory as
to why they are so ; but in adding this new theory to
the old facts we do not come to know the facts in a
different way, we only come to have something new
in our minds--a new opinion, for it is not strictly
knowledge, since it is never quite certain--alongside
the old knowledge. The process is a special kind of
accumulation. But in philosophy the knowledge (that
word is applicable here) why things are so makes a
difference to the knowledgethat they are so. The new
knowledge imparts a new quality to the old; in seeing why things are thus, we are not merely adding
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one piece of knowledge to another, we are coming to
know the old better. Our knowledge is not simply
accumulating, it is developing; it is improving as
well as increasing ; it is widening and strengthening
itself at once.
17. There is consequently a parallel difference in
the result of the process, the conclusion which the
argument establishes. In the case of empirical science
this is something new, something different from the
data and added to them; in the case of philosophy
it is the data themselves, developed into a new and
morerationalform. In empirical science, the outcome
of an inductive process is an hypothesis standing,
somewhat nebulously, outside the facts on which it
depends, like the shadow of a mountain cast on a
cloud; in philosophy, the theory that emerges from
consideration of the facts is no mere hypothesis, it
is the facts themselves more thoroughly understood;
the two things are related somewhat as a mountain
seen by itself is related to the same mountain seen
in its place in the mountain-mass to which it belongs.
5
18. To say that the conclusions of philosophy
must be checked by appeal to experience, therefore,
is valuable if it is merely intended as an indication
of the way in which philosophical reasoning differs
from that of the exact sciences ; but it is misleading
if it is taken as implying that the relation between
theory and experience in philosophy resembles that
which obtains in empirical science. In philosophy

171
there is a continuity between the experience and the
theory; the theory is nothing but the experience
itself, with its universality further insisted upon, its
latent connexions and contradictions brought into
the light of consciousness. Experience is already
developing into theory, and theory is still experience;
if theory must be checked by appeal to experience,
experience in its turn can be supplemented by deduction from theory, and philosophers have been known
to argue themselves into regions ofexperience where,
except as philosophers, they have never travelled.
But even that statement tends to over-emphasize
the separation between theory and fact, which in
philosophy is no separation at all, but only a distinction of the kind investigated in the third chapter,
between specific developments of the same genus-philosophical knowledge--articulated in a scale of
forms.
19. Accordingly when we distinguish, as we did
in the case of Spinoza, the knowledge that a man
has concerning moral questions before he begins
to philosophize from the ordered system into which
this knowledge is converted by philosophizing, the
supposedly non-philosophical or pre-philosophical
knowledge from which this process began is only
in a relative sense non-philosophical. It isless philosophical than that into which it develops, but it is
not strictly or absolutely non-philosophical; if we
call it so, we are using the term only as we use
the term illogical of an unsound argument, meaning
not that there is no logic in it, but that there is not
172
enough, and that this defect impairs what logic
there is. So, before people begin to do what we
generally call philosophizing, the knowledge which
they already possess is already full of philosophical
elements; it is not at the zero end of the scale, for
there is no zero end; it is, to say the least, at unity.
20. This gives a fresh meaning to the relation
between the 'conclusions' of philosophical thinking
and the 'experience' on which they are based, and
by appeal to which they are checked. These two
phrases are names for any two successive stages in
the scale of forms of philosophical knowledge. What
is called experience may be any stage in this scale ;
in itself, as all human experience must be, permeated
through and through by philosophical elements; but
relatively crude and irrational as compared with the
next stage above it, in which these philosophical
elements are more fully developed.
To say that theory must be checked by appeal to
experience, therefore, seems like saying that the more
rational must prove its rationality by conforming to
the less rational, which seems like appealing from
Philip sober to Philip drunk. But what is asked of
the higher is not simply that it should agree with
the lower, but rather that it should explain it: perpetuate its substance in a new form, related to the
old somewhat as a fact plus the reasons for it is related
to the bare fact. Consequently, when weask whether
a moral theory tallies with moral experience we are
asking whether the theory makesintelligiblethe moral
experience which we actually possess.

173
21. At every stage in the scale, there is a datum
or body of experience, the stage that has actually
been reached ; and there is a problem, the task of
explaining this experience by constructing a theory
of it, which is nothing but the same experience raised
by intenser thought to a higher level of rationality.
The accomplishment of this task is only the continuation of a process already begun ; it was only by
thinking that we reached the point at which we stand,
for the experience upon which we philosophize is
already a rational experience; so our reason for going
on is that we already stand committed to the task.
But the new and intenser thinking must be thinking
of a new kind; new principles are appearing in it,
and these give a criterion by which the principles
involved in the last step are superseded. Thus the
stage last reached, regarded as a theory, is now a
theory criticized and refuted; what stands firm is not
its truth as theory, but the fact that it has actually
been reached, the fact that we have experienced it;
and in criticizing and demolishing it as a theory we
are confirming and explaining it as an experience.
22. This, then, is the general nature of philosophical inference. The critical view of it was so
far right, that it consists always and essentially in
refutation; whatever positive doctrine has been propounded, the next step for philosophy is to demolish
it, to destroy it as a theory, and leave it standing only
as an experience. But this view only apprehends the
negative side of the process; it misses the positive
side, the necessity of explaining that experience by
174
reference to the new principles implied in the critical
process itself.
The analytic view was so far right, that every
movement of philosophical thought begins with a
datum which is already knowledge, and goes on to
explain what this knowledge means. It is onlywrong
because it forgets that, in explaining our knowledge,
we come to know it in a different way; the datum
does not remain a fixed point, it undergoes development in undergoing analysis, and therefore vanishes
in its original form, to reappear in a new.
It is right to describe philosophical thought as
deductive, because at every phase in its development
it is, ideally at least, a complete system based on
principles and connected throughout its texture by
strict logical bonds ; but this system is more than a
deductive system, because the principles are open to
criticism and must be defended by their success in
explaining our experience.
For this reason, because philosophy is always an
attempt to discern the principles which run through
experience and make it a rational whole, it is right to
call it inductive; but it differs from an inductive
science because the experience on which its theories
are based is itself an experience of rational living,
theorizing, philosophizing. Consequently, because
the data from which it begins and which it has
to explain are homogeneous with its conclusions,
the theories by which it seeks to explain them, the
activity of philosophizing is a datum to philosophy,
and among its tasks is the task of accounting for

175
itself; and this, which is true even at a quite low
level of philosophical development, is more and more
so as it becomes more and more philosophical; so
that the maturity of a philosophy may be judged
by the clearness with which it apprehends the principle laid down at the beginning of this essay, that
the theory of philosophy is an essential part of
philosophy.
IX
THE IDEA OF SYSTEM
i
i. IN the first chapter of this essay it wasremarked
that the most recent constructive movement in philosophical thought, there called the Kantian, drew to
its close a hundred years ago ; that a time followed
when philosophical studies sank into comparative
insignificance and neglect; and that they are now
reviving, and have reached a condition of ferment
which appears to hold out hopes of a new constructive movement. Construction implies system ; and
in philosophy, which has among its necessary tasks
the task of understanding itself, a period of constructive effort must be a time when thought conceives
itself as essentially systematic in form. If therefore
we are to hope for a future period of constructive
work in philosophy, we must decide what wemean in
such a context by constructive; that is,wemust form
a clear idea of the nature of a philosophical system.
Before we can do this, we must overcome a certain
prejudice, natural to a time of ferment and experiment, and still more so to a time of apathy and
neglect, against the idea of system in itself. This
prejudice has become almost an orthodoxy in
the last hundred years, when the idea of philosophy
as a system has been, more often than not, either
derided as an outgrown superstition or, if accepted,
accepted only with apologies and qualifications.
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177
It isnot amereprejudice. It isbased onreasons, and
serious reasons ; the chief of them appear to be these.
It is said that the idea of system is incompatible with the conception of thought as constantly
advancing through new discoveries to new points
of view. A system claims finality; but there is no
finality in human knowledge, and the philosopher
who builds a system is only trying, and always
trying in vain, to close the doors of the future.
A system claims completeness; but however it
may have been in the past when the total accumulation of knowledge in man's possession was small,
the vastness of the field which must be covered by
any general view of modern knowledge makes it
an enterprise far beyond the powers of a single
man. A system claims objectivity; but in effect it
is only a personal and private thing, the expression
of its author's subjective point of view: there are
as many philosophical systems as there are philosophers ; whereas the march of science has shown
that the only hope of permanence lies in the humbler
project of adding here a little and there a little to
a body of knowledge that transcends the purview
of any single contributor to the whole. And lastly,
a system claims unity; it claims that every problem is connected with every other, and it claims to
solve every problem by applying to it certain uniform rules of method; so that every question philosophy can raise is fitted or rather forced into a
single mould, and accommodated to the architecture of a single building; whereas philosophy has
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problems so diverse in kind that they can only be
handled satisfactorily if each is handled on its merits,
with a freedom and suppleness of method far greater
than any idea of system will allow.
2. It would be easy to answer these objections by
criticizing them as an unstable compound formed of
two elements : a certain hostility towards philosophy
as such, resulting in a demand that it should either
cease to exist or, if it must continue, renounce its
old methods and its old aims and conform in both
these respects to the pattern of science ; and a right
appreciation of philosophy's true nature, and a demand that it should no longer be content to ape other
forms of thought, but begin at last to pursue its own
proper aims by its own proper methods. It would
be easy to show that, so far as they are based on the
first motive, they can be answered on the principles
already laid down in this essay; and that, so far as
they are based on the second, they express an objection not to philosophical systems as such but to
non-philosophical systems usurping their function,
and claiming their name.
But this method of answering them would hardly
do them justice. They are varying expressions of a
demand which any future philosophy must satisfy,
and a conviction that this demand has not been altogether satisfied by any philosophy of the past. This
demand and this conviction could be expressed in a
logical and coherent way only by some one already
possessed of a logical and coherent philosophy; but
the objections I haveoutlined are felt by persons who
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179
would frankly disclaim any such possession; they
are indeed a way of explaining why those who feel
them neither have nor hope to have a philosophical
system of their own. Such a criticism as I have
outlined, therefore, would be a mere exhibition of
pedantry: it would mean treating them as if they
were the outcome of a systematic philosophy, which
they do not profess to be, and at the same time
failing to criticize or even to understand their spirit.
In what follows, therefore, I shall endeavour to treat
them as expressions of a point of view with which
any future constructive philosophy that is more than
an academic game must come to terms.
3. The first objection is that a system claims
finality, and that this claim must always be false,
since human knowledgeis alwaysgrowingand changing. Taken literally, this is an objection not to the
idea of a philosophical system but to the idea of
any system whatever, for example, a systematic
presentation of mathematics or medicine ; for in all
fields of study there is always hope of new advance,
and in none can a system, whenever it is formed, be
final. In spite of this, scientists and historians and
other students try to present their knowledge from
time to time in a systematicform ; and their systems,
though bound to be superseded, serve a necessary
purpose, not closing the doors of the future but
rather opening them; for in order to advance in
knowledge we must first know where we stand, and
no student can take stock of his position without
attempting to state it systematically.
:8o
THE IDEA OF SYSTEM

But the objection does tell with special force
against the idea of a philosophical system. In other
fields of thought it is plausible, I do not ask how
far it is ever really true, to describe our knowledge
as an aggregate of separable items: an inventory, to
which additions can be made without altering what
was there before. Even when the addition islogically
derived from what was there before, its deduction
is an irreversible process which does not recoil upon
its starting-point. In these fields, therefore, it is
plausible to suggest that when we take stock of our
knowledge we are reviewing assets that are permanent ; whereas in philosophy, because every new
discovery reacts upon what we knew before, the
whole body of knowledge must be remade from
the foundations at every step in advance.
All this may be granted; but although it proves
that a philosophical system is peculiarly difficult to
construct, it does not prove that the attempt to construct it is mistaken. After all, philosophy is a form
of human thought, subject to change, liable to error,
capable of progress. The philosopher therefore,
like every student, must sum up his progress from
time to time, and express his conclusions in a systematic form, if progress is to continue. Owing to
certain peculiarities of philosophy, this demands
more patience and a more critical outlook than the
corresponding audit of history or science; but it
cannot on that account be omitted. Nor does it in
philosophy more than elsewhere imply a claim to
finality. That must be recognized by all philo-
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181
sophies of the future. Not that it has been altogether
overlooked by philosophies of the past; one of the
greatest system-builders at the close of one of his
systematic treatises wrote the words bishieher ist das
Bewusstseyn gekommen; and on this note--thepast has
been liquidated, we are now ready for the future--every system, philosophical or other, must end.
4. The second criticism was that to-day no single
thinker can survey the entire field of knowledge so
as to achieve that completeness ofviewwhich the construction of a philosophical system demands. That
no one man can adequately survey the entire field
of modern knowledge may be granted; but it does
not follow that no one man can adequately survey the
field of modern philosophy. The business of philosophy is not to be an encyclopaedia of human
knowledge, but to deal with its own special problems
in its own special way; and since philosophy less than
any other branch of knowledge presents the appearance of an accumulation of facts, there is less reason
in philosophy than anywhere else to think that the
passage of time makes the subject unwieldy by sheer
growth in bulk.
Yet even so, the objector may insist, the construction of a strictly philosophical system, with all the
demands it makes upon its author both within and
without the sphere of strictly philosophical knowledge, is a task beyond the powers of any one man.
But it is a task which no one man is or ever has
been called upon to discharge. The great systems of
the past have always been built up by incorporating
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THE IDEA OF SYSTEM
materialdrawn from the work of others; thus, instead
of conceiving the history of thought as a succession
of personal systems, a Socratic philosophy, a Platonic
philosophy, an Aristotelian philosophy and so on, it
would be nearer the truth to think of a single Greek
philosophy, the work of many minds, remodelling
and in part reconstructing it as successive generations of builders reconstructed a medieval church.
If every system stands thus in organic relation to
the past, it stands in organic relation to the present
also. Every philosopher finds himself shepherded,
as it were, into a particular line of study by the fact
that others round him are doing workwhich requires
this as its complement; there is in philosophy, asin
every science, a tacit partition of the field of thought,
and the work of each thinker is his contribution to a
wider whole in which he feels himself a collaborator.
Since every philosophy is in part a borrowing from
philosophies of the past and in part a collaboration
with those of the present, there can be no such
thing as a private, personal, self-contained system.
If it has ever in the past been fancied that this could
be so, and that is a question of history which need
not here be raised, the vanity is one that must be
renounced for the future.
5. The third objection was that whereas, by its
very nature as thought, philosophy claims objective
validity, this is a claim which in its form as a system
it can never make good. A philosophical system is
regarded as essentially subjective, a personal and
private thing, an expression of the way in which
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183
its author looks at the world. Science, it is said, is
impersonal and objective, so that its results are valid
for all rational beings and for all time; a philosophical system is so bound up with subjective
elements that none holds good beyond the limits
of the mind that created it; and this defect, it is
thought, can only be overcome by abandoning the
idea of a systematic or comprehensive philosophy,
and applying to philosophythe method of piecemeal
study and accumulation of detailed results which has
proved fruitful in the case of the sciences.
The idea of a personal and private system, I need
not repeat, is one which I have no wish to defend.
But this objection, in effect, drives home a supposed
implication of what I have already said. 'Admit that
each philosopher merely contributes his quota to
the general advancement of philosophical thought,'
it argues, 'and you give up the idea of system altogether. You cannot have it both ways; a system
is one thing, a contribution towards a system is
another; if each individual philosopher's task is to
provide the latter, no philosopher is concerned
to provide the former.'
But is not this the fallacy of false disjunction?
The individual philosopher is certainly making his
personal contribution to the advancementof thought,
and that is all he can ever hope to do. But the
thought to which he is contributing is philosophical thought; and this includes as an integral part
of itself the theory of itself; hence everyphilosopher,
in making this contribution, must think of himself
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THE IDEA OF SYSTEM
as making it; that is, he must have his theory of his
own contribution's place in the whole to which he is
contributing. Hence, in making this personal contribution, he must reconsider the general question what
philosophy is.
This, accordingly, is not a contradiction but a
complement of what was said in answer to the
second objection. It follows from the peculiar nature
of philosophy that each philosopher, if he genuinely
does make his own contribution to knowledge, cannot be merely adding another item to an inventory;
he must be shaping afresh in his ownmind the idea
of philosophy as a whole. And conversely, it is only
by attempting this task, formidable as it is, that he
can make any contribution, however modest, to the
general advancement of philosophy; for until he has
confronted this problem the work which he is doing,
whatever else it may be, is not genuinely philosophical work, since it lacks one of the distinctive
marks of philosophical thinking.
6. The fourth objectionwas that the ideal of philosophy as a system does violence to the diversity of
philosophical problems by forcing them into a single
mould and constantly asserting connexions between
them, when in point of fact they are better dealt
with as independent problems, each to be considered
on its merits and solved by methods appropriate to
itself. The objector feels, rather than conceives,
philosophy as the constant endeavour to solve problems that spring up spontaneously at this or that
point all over the field of its subject-matter; each
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185
problem presents new features both in content and
in form, and requires a fresh eye and aflexiblemind
for its adequate solution; and all alike are sure to
be falsely stated and falsely solved if approached
from the starting-point of a ready-made formula.
A reader ofthis essay does not need to be told that
rigid and ready-made formulae are fatal to sound
philosophical method; if he accepts the general point
of view developed in the preceding chapters, he will
welcome this new objector as an ally. But he may
be a dangerous one. If he only means that a philosopher must aim systematically and methodically at
avoiding rigid formulaeand at revising his principles
in the light of his conclusions, well and good; but
if he fails to see that a methodical avoidance of
rigidity is itself a system of method, and thinks
that there isno difference betweensystematic thought
and thought in bondage to ready-made formulae,
he is an anarchist of the mind, whose work can only
lay waste the ground that thought has cultivated,
and whose principles must not be allowed to pass
unchallenged.
2
7. I have met each of these four objections by
conceding in principle the point for which the objector seemed anxious to contend ; and the question
next arises : after makingall these concessions, what
remains of the idea of system ? Is not the anarchist
right in thinking that philosophy can never hope to
be in any intelligible sense of the word systematic,
but must content itself with isolated discussions on
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THE IDEA OF SYSTEM
isolated points, each following a method improvised
to fit the peculiarities of the subject-matter?
It will perhaps be best to answer this question in
two stages: first by asking whether the proposal
to abandon the idea of system in philosophy is a
reasonable one, or whether it is not at bottom a selfcontradiction, as if a man should say 'my method is
to have no method; my one rule in thinking is to
have no rules'; and then to ask whether the characteristics which have been admitted to belong to
philosophical thought, so far from being inconsistent
with the idea of system, may not be logical consequences of that idea when it is modified, according
to the principles adopted elsewhere in this essay, to
suit the special case of philosophy.
First, then, I think it can be shown that in some
form or other the idea of system is inevitable in
philosophy, and that no attempt to deny it can succeed unless it is pushed to the point of denying that
the word philosophy has any meaning whatever.
Let us suppose that a philosopher, keenly alive to
the differences between one problem and another,
eager not to falsify any by assimilating it to one of
another kind, and determined to treat each on its
merits, lays down for himself the rule that every
problem must be handled as if it had been the first
and only problem that philosophical thought had
ever encountered.
Now let him raise the question: what exactly, in
rejecting the idea of system, am I rejecting ? For
example, am I denying that these various inquiries,
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187
sharing as they do the epithet philosophical, share
some common nature whose name that epithet is? If
to this question he replies that there is no such common nature, cadit quaestio ; the word philosophy is
a word without a meaning. But if there is a common
nature, wherein does it consist ?
It might consist in their form, as examples of the
same general type of thinking, or in their content, as
concerned with subject-matters of the same general
kind. Suppose he places the community of nature
in their form, that is already to abandon his position;
for it implies that philosophical thought has its own
ways of proceeding, so that the isolation of each
problem from the rest in point ofmethod disappears.
But the community of nature cannot be confined
to form. In content or subject-matter, these various
inquiries have this at least in common, that they
are all concerned with philosophical topics. Thus
the various subject-matters as well as the various
methods, however widely they differ, must all alike
be instances of philosophical subject-matter as well
as philosophical method: they must in fact have
that kind of relation to each other which connects
instances of the same concept.
This concept is the concept of philosophy, in its
formal aspect as the concept of philosophical thinking, and its material aspect as the concept of philosophical subjects or topics of thought. And this concept will, of course, be not only general but generic:
it will divide into species and those into sub-species,
thus forming a system of specifications into which
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THE IDEA OF SYSTEM
it must be possible somewhere to fit any piece of
philosophical thinking and any philosophical topic.
8. It should be possible to say more concerning
the nature of this system. The concept of philosophy is itself a philosophical concept, and therefore
its specific classes will overlap. It will be impossible
to divide up the field of philosophical topics into
mutually exclusive departments; ethical questions
will show logical as well as ethical aspects, and vice
versa; and the various philosophical sciences, instead
of treating each a separate subject-matter of its own,
should be regarded rather as treating each a distinct
aspect of one and the same subject-matter. Spinoza,
grappling with this problem, spoke of a single substance having two attributes, extension and thought,
so related as to be not separable component parts of
its essence, a false view into which it is easy to slip
by speaking of aspects, but two languages, as it were,
in each of which the whole nature of that substance
is expressed. Two philosophical sciences dealing
with extension and thought respectively would be
concerned therefore, on Spinoza's view, not with
two separate groups of topics, but with topics somehow at bottom the same.
It is very difficult to see how this sameness and
this difference should be conceived; but clearly there
are two ways in which it should not be conceived :
there are not completely different groups of ethical,
logical, &c., topics all having one identical philosophical form; nor is there one identical subjectmatter in which all the differences between the
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189
different philosophicalsciences are sunk into nothingness. The former misconception would divide the
substance of philosophy, the latter would confound
its distinctions.
9. Light can perhaps be thrown on these difficulties by advancing from the conception of overlapping
classes to that of a scale of forms. If the concept
of philosophy is a philosophical concept, different
groups of philosophical topics will not only overlap,
they will be philosophical in different ways and also
to varying degrees ; and the methods appropriate to
them will correspondingly conform in different ways
and in varying degrees to the general idea of philosophical method. The various parts which together
make up the body of a philosophy will thus form a
scale in whose ascent the subject-matter becomes
progressively philosophical in the sense of coming
more and more to be the kind of subject-matter of
which philosophy is in search, and the method becomes progressively philosophical in the sense that
it comes to exhibit more and more adequately the
proper nature of philosophical thought.
From this point ofview the conception of different
philosophical sciences as treating distinct aspects of
the same subject-matter, or expressing distinct attributes of one substance, will be modified by conceiving them as terms in a scale, each penetrating more
deeply than the last into the essence of its subjectmatter and expressing the nature ofthe one substance
more adequately. Philosophy as a whole, in its form
as a system, now appears as a scale of philosophies,
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THE IDEA OF SYSTEM
each differing from the rest not only in kind, as
dealing with a certain specific form of -the one
universal philosophical subject-matter by means
of an appropriate and therefore specifically distinct
method, but also in degree, as more or less adequately embodying the ideal of genuinely philosophical method applied to genuinely philosophical
subject-matter.
Each form in such a scale sums up the whole scale
to that point; that is to say, each form is itself a
system in which the topics and methods of the subordinate forms find a subordinate place. From the
point of view of a philosopher whose thought has
reached a given form, each subordinate form, considered as a self-contained and distinct philosophy,
presents two aspects. As a philosophy distinct from
his own, it is a discussion by a method which he
does not use of a problem with which he is not concerned ; as a philosophy opposed to his own, it is a
concrete example of how philosophizing should not
be done. But this same form, when considered as
subordinate to his own, appears as an error whose
refutation he has already achieved; and, as something reabsorbed into his own, it constitutes an
element within his own system; and thus one side
of the task of all systematic philosophizing is to
show the truth of theories which, considered as selfcontained and distinct philosophies, would have to
be condemned as errors.
10. The conception of systematic philosophy as a
whole whose parts are related as terms in a scale of
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191
forms, makes it possible to regard the four objections
stated at the beginning of this chapter as together
forming a rough and imperfect, but by no means
inept, summary of the leading characteristics which
a philosophical system should present.
'A philosophical system', it was said, 'claims
finality, but the claim must always be false because
the doors of the future are always open.' The contradiction vanishes when it is realized that the philosopher, in constructing a system, has his place in a
scale whose structure is such that every term in it
sums up the whole scale to that point; however far
up the scale he goes, he never comes to an absolute
end of the series, because by reaching this point he
already comes in sight of new problems ; but he is
always at a relative end, in the sense that, wherever
he stands, he must know where he stands and sum
up his progress hitherto, on pain of making no progress henceforth. And every such summary can only
be done once, and is therefore final: the problem
which it must solve is finally solved.
'A philosophicalsystem claims completeness; but
in fact it can never be more than a contribution made
by its author towards a wider synthesis.' Here again
the notion of a scale of forms dispels the contradiction. As one form in a scale, an individual philosophy is one among many, a single moment in the
history of thought, which future philosophers will
have to treat assuch ; but as reinterpreting previous
philosophies and reaffirming them as elements within
itself it summarizes the whole previous course of
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THE IDEA OF SYSTEM
that history, and is thus universal as well as individual.
'A philosophical system claims objectivity, but in
fact it can only express its author's private and personal views.' Here again there is no contradiction,
if the historical development of philosophy is regarded as the deployment of a scale of forms. So far
as any man isa competent philosopher,his philosophy
arises by objective necessity out of his situation in
the history of thought and the problem with which
he is confronted; but situation and problem are
unique, and hence no one philosopher's system can
be acceptable to another without somemodification.
That each must reject the thoughts of others, regarded as self-contained philosophies, and at the
same time reaffirm them as elements in his own
philosophy, is due not to causes in taste and temperament but to the logical structure ofphilosophical
thought.
Lastly, 'a philosophical system claims uniformity
of method, but a truly philosophical spirit will rather
aim at flexibility.' But the flexibility that philosophy
demands is not a random flexibility, a mere looseness in the application of a method nowhere quite
appropriate; it is a uniform or methodical flexibility, in which the method changes from one topic
to another because form and content are changing
part passu as thought, traversing its scale of forms,
gradually approximates to the ideal of a perfectly
philosophical subject-matter treated by a perfectly
philosophical method.
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193
Accordingly, these four contentions, instead of
expressing the impossibility of any philosophical
system, express the characteristics which any system
must present if it is organized according to principles derived from the peculiar structure of the
philosophical concept.
3
ii. Hitherto the idea of a philosophical system
has been sketched, in the barest outline, merely as
an idea, irrespectively of any realization of that idea
in actual fact. Its characteristics have been merely
deduced from the notion of a scale of forms. It
remains to ask whether this ideal is anywhere and
in any way realized.
That it is altogether unrealized we shall hardly
expect, having already seen that an unrealized idea
is a thing foreign to the essence of philosophical
thought; the judgement that philosophy is essentially systematic is a categorical judgement, and
means that whoever tries to think philosophically,
and to some extent succeeds, must find and does
find, when he reflects upon it, that his thought takes
shape as a system. The idea of system is nowhere
finallyand completely realized; but it is alwaystending to realize itself wherever any diversity is recognized in the subject-matter and methods of thought.
This constant tendency towards systematic shape
finds expression inwaysinfinitely various: anewway,
wherever philosophy finds a new kind of diversity to
organize into a whole. Four examples will suffice.
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THE IDEA OF SYSTEM
12. First, the division of philosophy into the socalled philosophical sciences, metaphysics, logic,
ethics, and so forth, is to some extent a realization
of this idea; for to some extent these differ both in
kind, as various ways of dealing with various kinds
of problem, and in degree, as more and less philosophical treatments of topics more and less proper
to philosophy. Every philosopher realizes that the
subjects treated in these sciences are in some sense
aspects of one and the same subject, and that
both in subject and in method they form, however
roughly, a scale, in which at one end there are subjects and methods hardly to be distinguished from
those of empirical science--is psychology, for example, an empirical science or a philosophical ?
--and, at the other, perhaps in metaphysics, subjects in the strictest sense philosophical, treated
by methods that in the highest degree exhibit the
nature of philosophical thought. It is only in a
rough and approximative way that the conventional
canon of philosophical sciences corresponds to the
idea of a system; but it is only in so far as it does correspond that it can claim philosophical importance;
otherwise it represents a merely empirical grouping
of philosophical topics.
13. Secondly, the history of philosophical thought,
so far as it is a genuine history and not a merely temporal sequence of disconnected events, exhibits the
same kind of approximation. It is a genuine history
in so far as the events contained in it lead each to
the next: so far, that is, as each philosopher has
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195
learnt his philosophy through studying the work of
his predecessors. For in that case each is trying to
do what his predecessor did--to philosophize ; but
to do it better by doing it differently; assimilating
whatever seems true, rejecting whatever seems false,
and thus producing a newphilosophy which is at the
same time an improved version of the old. His successor in turn stands in this samerelation to himself,
and thus the entire history of thought is the history
of a single sustained attempt to solve a single permanent problem, each phase advancing the problem
by the extent of all the work done on it in the interval, and summing up the fruits of this workin the
shape of a unique presentation of the problem. In
a history of this kind all the philosophies of the past
are telescoped into the present, and constitute a scale
of forms, never beginning and never ending, which
are different both in degree and in kind, distinct from
each other and opposed to each other.
14. Thirdly, a philosopher might be asked to give
some account of the state of philosophy in his own
time; and it would be highly unphilosophical in him
to reply that in his time there was no such thing as
a state of philosophy, but only a chaos or babel of
different philosophies ; for this would show that he
was either unwilling or unable to sort these philosophies into their kinds, to analyse their affinities,
and to assess their merits. To a philosophical eye
these various relations are not given to their terms
from without, by the arbitrary act of a systematizing
intellect; they really subsist in and between the
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THE IDEA OF SYSTEM
terms, and to apprehend the terms without apprehending these relations is to misapprehend them.
But if these relations are grasped, I do not say completely, for completion is here as in allphilosophical
enterprises unattainable, but to any considerable
degree, the philosophical views between which they
subsist will reveal themselves as nodal points in a
system of thought which, as a whole, may be called
the philosophy of the present day.
This system cannot be conceived except as a scale
of forms ; for the various philosophies which go to
compose it vary in the degree to which they deserve
the title philosophy of the present day; some are
too unphilosophical to claim that title without qualification, some too antiquated, some too fragmentary,
some too negative; each presents a double aspect,
partly as an attempt, never quite successful, at a complete philosophy, partly as a contribution to something wider than itself; but ideally a place can be
found even for the crudest and least philosophical of them in a scale which, travelling downward
towards zero but never reaching it, is long enough to
accommodate all those dim and fluctuating halfphilosophical and quarter-philosophical opinions
out of which, partly by consolidation and partly by
criticism, there emerges the comparatively definite
and organized group of theories collectively called
the philosophy of to-day. With that emergence the
second main phase of the scale is reached. The third
is reached when these organized and ostensibly conflicting theories are shown to participate according
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197
to their degrees and kinds in a single common spirit
which, not in a collective but in an eminent sense,
is the philosophy of the present.
Such a system is only an ideal, in the sense that
it regulates the procedure of a philosopher trying to
answer the question at issue, and cannot be expected
to present itself fully formed in his answer ; but it
is not an ideal imposed on his subject-matter by his
thought; it is the way in which he must apprehend
his subject-matter if he is to apprehend it correctly.
15. Lastly, he undertakes a task not very different
from this when he tries to think out his own philosophy. He begins by finding in himself a welter of
half-philosophical and quarter-philosophical opinions
not at bottom, if he will consider them candidly,more
harmonious with each other than those of different
contemporary persons ; out of these, which already
vary in his estimate of their importance and profundity, there emerge once more by consolidation and
criticism certain more or less definitely philosophical
positions ; these again vary in the conviction with
which they are held, some merely played with, some
maintained with diffidence, some judged fundamental, but each liable on examination to prove
contradictory with some of the rest. The process
now begins again at a higher level, and he tries to
see these various positions as parts of a connected
whole, or, failing that, to correct the recalcitrant
elements until they fall into place ; this implies not
only adjusting the parts to the idea of the whole but
adjusting the idea of the whole to meet the demands
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THE IDEA OF SYSTEM
of the parts, so that the idea of the whole is itself
undergoing transformation as the scale is traversed
upwards.
These are only examples of innumerable ways in
which philosophical thought tends to organize itself
into a system having the general character of a scale
of forms. What is permanent and essential is not
this or that system, for every particular system is
nothing but an interim report on the progress of
thought down to the time of making it, but the
necessity of thinking systematically; and although
this necessity may be overlooked or denied with no
great harm done so long as philosophy aims only at
being negative or critical, or attempts no more than
desultory and short-winded constructive flights, in
order to do its proper work properly it must understand what that work is: in other words, philosophy
must think of itself as systematic.
X
PHILOSOPHY AS A BRANCH OF
LITERATURE
i
i. PHILOSOPHY is a name that belongs not only to
a certain realm of thought, but also to the literature
in which that thought finds or seeks expression. It
belongs to the subject of this essay, therefore, if only
by way of appendix, to ask whether philosophical
literature has any peculiarities corresponding to those
of the thought which it tries to express.
Literature as a genus is divided into the species
poetry and prose. Prose is marked by a distinction
between matter and form: what we say and how
we say it. The formal elements are those which
we call literary quality, style, writing, and so forth;
the material elements are what we generally call the
'contents' of the work. Each part has its own scale
of values. On its formal side, prose should be clear,
expressive, and in the most general sense of that
word beautiful; on its material side, it should be
well thought out, intelligent, and in a general sense
true. To satisfy the first claim the prose writer must
be an artist; to satisfy the second, he must be a
thinker.
2. These parts are distinct, but they cannot be
separated. As elements in prose, neither can exist
without the other. If it were possible for a book to
be well thought out but ill written, it would not be
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PHILOSOPHY AS ABRANCH
literature at all; if it could be well written but ill
thought out, it would at anyrate not be prose. But
the two do not exist in equilibrium. The formal part
is the servant of the material. We speak well, in
prose, only in order to saywhat wemean: the matter
is prior to the form. This priority, no doubt, is
rather logical than temporal. The matter does not
exist as a naked but fully formed thought in our
minds before we fit it with a garment of words. It
is only in some dark and half-conscious waythat we
know our thoughts before we come to express them.
Yet in that obscure fashion they are already within
us ; and, rising into full consciousness as we find the
words to utter them, it is they that determine the
words, not vice versa.
3. In poetry, this distinction between matter and
form does not exist. Instead of two linked problems,
finding out what he wants to say and finding out
how to sayit, the poet has only one problem. Instead
of having to satisfy two standards of value, beauty
and truth, the poet recognizes only one. The sole
business of a poem is to be beautiful; its sole merits
are formal or literary merits. In the sense in which
the prose writer is trying to say something, there is
nothing that the poet is trying to say; he is trying
simply to speak.
4. Prose and poetry are philosophically distinct
species of a genus; consequentlythey overlap. Literary excellence, which is the means to an end in prose
and the sole end or essence of poetry, is the same
thing in both cases. Judged by a purely literary or
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201
artistic standard, the merits of even the best prose
are inferior to those of even commonplace poetry;
for these qualities are of necessity degraded in becoming means instead of ends ; yet the prose writer
does inhabit the mountain of poetry, though he lives
only on its lower slopes, and drinks of its waters not
fresh from their spring but muddy with the silt of
their stream-beds.
5. This distinction must not be confused with the
distinction between prose and verse, which is an
empirical division between twowaysofwriting, either
of which may be poetical or prosaic in character.
There is no doubt a tendency for poetry to take the
outward shape of verse ; that is because verse, in its
patterns of rhythm and rhyme, expresses a native
tendency on the part of language to organize itself
according to intrinsic formal characters whenever
it is liberated from the task of expressing thought.
Similar formal patterns are always emerging in
the structure of prose, only to be lost again; they
emerge because without them language would be
wholly non-poetical and would therefore cease to
be language; they are lost again because form is
here subordinate to matter, and the poetry inherent
in language is therefore shattered into an infinity
of inchoate poems.
2
6. Philosophy as a kind of literature belongs to
the realm of prose. But within that realm it has
certain characteristics of its own, which can best be
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PHILOSOPHYAS A BRANCH
seen by comparing it with the literatures of science
and of history.
Scientific literature contains, as a noteworthy element in its vocabulary, a number of technical terms.
If the scientist were refused permission to use these
terms, he could not express his strictly scientific
thoughts at all; by using them more and more freely,
he comes to express himself with greater and greater
ease and sureness. In philosophical literature, technical terms are regarded with some suspicion. They
are slightingly described asjargon, and philosophers
who use them much are derided as pedants or criticized for evading the duty of explaining themselves
and the even more urgent duty of understanding
themselves.
This impression of a difference between the ideals
of a scientific vocabulary and a philosophical is only
deepened by observing that many of the greatest
philosophers, especially those who by common consent have written well in addition to thinking well,
have used nothing that can be called a technical
vocabulary. Berkeley has none ; Plato none, if consistency of usage is a test; Descartes none, except
when he uses a technical term to point a reference
to the thoughts of others ; and where a great philosopher like Kant seems to revel in them, it is by no
means agreed that his thought gains proportionately
in precision and intelligibility, or that the stylist in
him is equal to the philosopher.
A general review of the history of philosophy
compared with the equally long history of mathe
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203
matics, would show that whereas exact science has
from the first been at pains to build up a technical
vocabulary in which every term should have a rigid
and constant meaning, philosophy has always taken
a different road: its terms have shifted their meaning
from one writer to another, and in successive phases
of the same writer's work, in a way which is the
exact opposite of what we find in science, and would
justify the assertion that, in the strict sense of the
word technical, philosophy has never had anything
that deserved the name of a technical vocabulary.
Before concluding that this is a state of things
calling for amendment, it may be well to ask what
technical terms are, and why they are needed in the
expression of scientific thought.
7. Technical terms are terms not used in ordinary
speech, but invented ad hoc for a special purpose,
or else they are borrowed from ordinary speech but
used ad hoc in a special sense. They are needed
because it is desired to express a thought for whose
expression ordinaryspeech does not provide. Hence,
becausethey areessentiallyinnovationsinvocabulary,
and artificial or arbitrary innovations, they cannot
be understood and therefore must not be used unless
they are defined: and definition,here, means 'verbal'
as distinct from 'real' definition.
It has sometimes been maintained that all language consists of sounds taken at pleasure to serve as
marks for certain thoughts or things : which would
amount to saying that it consists of technical terms.
But since a technical term implies a definition, it is
204
impossible that all words should be technical terms,
for if they were we could never understand their definitions. The business of language is to express or
explain; if language cannot explain itself, nothing
else can explain it; and a technical term, in so far
as it calls for explanation, is to that extent not language but something else which resembles language
in being significant, but differs from it in not being
expressive or self-explanatory. Perhaps I may point
the distinction by saying that it is properly not a
word but a symbol, using this term aswhen wespeak
of mathematical symbols. The technicalvocabulary
of science is thus neither a language nor a special
part of language, but a symbolism like that of mathematics. It presupposes language, for the terms of
which it consists are intelligible only when defined,
and theymust be defined in ordinaryornon-technical
language, that is, in language proper. But language
proper does not presuppose technical terms, for in
poetry, where language is most perfectly and purely
itself, no technical terms are either used or presupposed, any more than in the primitive speech of
childhood or the ordinary speech of conversation.
Thus the technical element in scientific language
is an element foreign to the essence of language as
such. So far as scientific literature allows itself to
be guided by its natural tendency to rely on technical
terms, scientific prose falls apart into two things:
expressions, as a mathematician speaks of expressions, made up of technical terms, which signify
scientific thought but are not language, and the
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205
verbal definitions of these terms, which are language
but do not signify scientific thought.
8. Philosophicalliterature shows no such tendency.
Even when, owing to the mistaken idea that whatever is good in science will prove good in philosophy,
it has tried to imitate science in this respect, the
imitation has been slight and superficial, and the
further it has gone the less good it has done. This
is because the peculiar necessity for a technical
vocabulary in science has no counterpart in philosophy.
Technical terms are needed in science because in
the course of scientific thought we encounter concepts which are wholly new to us, and for which
therefore we must have wholly new names. Such
words as chiliagon and pterodactyl are additions to
our vocabulary because the things for which they
stand are additions to our experience. This is possible because the concepts of science are divided
into mutually exclusive species, and consequently
there can be specifications of a familiar genus which
are altogether new to us.
In philosophy, where the species of a genus are
not mutually exclusive, no concept can ever come
to us as an absolute novelty; we can only come to
know better what to some extent we knew already.
We therefore never need an absolutely new word for
an absolutely new thing. But we do constantly need
relatively new words for relatively new things: words
with which to indicate the new aspects, new distinctions, new connexions which thought brings to light
206
ina familiar subject-matter; and even these are not so
much new to us as hitherto imperfectly apprehended.
This demand cannot be satisfied by technical
terms. On the contrary, technical terms, owing to
their rigidity and artificiality, are a positive impediment to its satisfaction. In order to satisfy it, a
vocabulary needs two things: groups of words nearly
but not quite synonymous, differentiated by shades
of meaning which for some purposes can be ignored
and for others become important; and single words
which, without being definitely equivocal, have
various senses distinguished according to the ways
in which they are used.
9. These two characteristics are precisely those
which ordinary language, as distinct from a technical
vocabulary, possesses. It is easy to verify this statement by comparing the scientific definition of such
a word as circle with the account given for example
in the Oxford English Dictionary of what the same
word means or may mean in ordinary usage. If it
is argued, according to the method followed elsewhere in this essay, that since technical terms are
used in science something corresponding to them,
mutatis mutandis, will be found in philosophy, the
modifications necessary to change the concept of a
technical term from the shape appropriate to science
into the shape appropriate to philosophy willdeprive
it exactly of what makes it a technical term and
convert it into ordinary speech.
The language of philosophy is therefore, as every
careful reader of the great philosophers already
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207
knows, a literary language and not a technical.
Wherever a philosopher uses a term requiring formal
definition, as distinct from the kind of exposition
described in the fourth chapter, the intrusion of a
non-literary element into his language corresponds
with the intrusion of a non-philosophical element
into his thought: a fragment of science, a piece of
inchoate philosophizing, or a philosophical error;
three things not, in such a case, easily to be distinguished.
The duty of the philosopher as a writer is therefore to avoid the technical vocabulary proper to
science, and to choose his words according to the
rules of literature. His terminology must have that
expressiveness, thatflexibility,that dependence upon
context, which are the hall-marks of a literary use
of words as opposed to a technical use of symbols.
A corresponding duty rests with the reader of
philosophical literature, who must remember that
he is reading a language and not a symbolism. He
must neither think that his author is offering averbal
definition when he is making some statement about
the essence of a concept--a fertile source of sophistical criticisms--nor complain when nothing resembling such a definition is given; he must expect
philosophical terms to express their own meaning
by the way in which they are used, like the words
of ordinary speech. He must not expect one word
always to mean one thing in the sense that its meaning undergoes no kind of change; he must expect
philosophical terminology, like all language, to be
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PHILOSOPHY AS A BRANCH
always in process of development, and he must
recollect that this, so far from making it harder to
understand, is what makes it able to express its own
meaning instead of being incomprehensible apart
from definitions, like a collection of rigid and therefore artificial technical terms.
3
10. In using words as words, that is, in writing
literary or artistic prose, the philosopher resembles
the historian. But here again there are differences.
Expounding a concept and narrating a sequence of
events both demand artistic writing; but the difference in subject-matter entails a corresponding difference in style.
Historical writing is an attempt to communicate
to the reader something which the writer selects for
communication out of his store of knowledge. He
never tries to write down all he knows about his
subject, but only a part of it. Indeed, this is all he
can do. Events in time fall outside one another;
but they are connected by chains of consequence;
and therefore, since those we know are linked in this
way with others which we do not know, there is
always a certain element of incomprehensibility even
in those we know best. Therefore our knowledge
of any given fact is incomplete; because it is incomplete, we cannot say how incomplete it is; and
all we can be sure of is some central nucleus of knowledge, beyond which there extends in every direction
a penumbra of uncertainty. In historical writing,
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209
what we aim at doing is to express this nucleus of
knowledge, ignoringthe uncertainties that lie outside
it. We try to steer clear of doubts and problems,
and stick to what is certain. This division of what
we know into what we know for certain and what
we know in a doubtful or problematic way, the first
being narrated and the second suppressed, gives
every historical writer an air of knowing more than
he says, and addressing himself to a reader who
knows less than he. All historical writing is thus
primarily addressed to a reader, and a relatively
uninformed reader; it is therefore instructive or
didactic in style. The reader is kept at arm's length,
and is never admitted into the intimacy of the
writer's mind ; the writer, however conscientiously
he cites authorities, never lays bare the processes
of thought which have led him to his conclusions,
because that would defer the completion of his
narrative to the Greek calends, while he discussed
his own states of consciousness, in which the reader
is not interested.
ii. Philosophy is in this respect the opposite of
history. Every piece of philosophical writing is
primarily addressed by the author to himself. Its
purpose is not to select from among his thoughts
those of which he is certain and to express those, but
the very opposite: to fasten upon the difficulties and
obscurities in which he finds himself involved, and
try, if not to solve or remove them, at least to understand them better. The philosopher is forced to
work in this way by the inextricable unity of the
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object which he studies; it is not dispersed over
space, as in physics, or over time, as in history; it
is not a genus cut up into mutually exclusive species,
or awhole whose parts canbe understood separately ;
in thinking of it, therefore, he must always be probing into the darkest parts, as a guide trying to keep
his party together must always be hastening the
hindmost. The philosopher therefore, in the course
of his business, must always be confessing his difficulties, whereas the historian is always to some extent concealing them. Consequently the difference
between the writer's position and the reader's, which
is so clear in historical literature, and is the cause of
its didactic manner, does not exist in the literature
of philosophy. The philosophers who have had the
deepest instinct for style haverepeatedly shrunk from
adopting the form of a lecture or instructive address,
and chosen instead that of a dialogue in which the
work of self-criticism is parcelled out among the
dramatis personae, or a meditation in which the mind
communes with itself, or a dialectical process where
the initial position is modified again and again as
difficulties in it come to light.
Common to all these literary forms is the notion
of philosophical writing as essentially a confession, a
search by the mind for its own failings and an attempt
to remedy them by recognizingthem. Historians may
be pardoned, even praised, for a slightly dogmatic
and hectoring tone, a style calculated to deepen the
sense ofdivisionbetween themselves and their readers,
an attempt to impress and convince. Philosophers
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211
are debarred from these methods. Their onlyexcuse
for writing is that they mean to make a clean breast,
first to themselves, and then to their readers, if they
have any. Their style must be the plain and modest
style proper to confession, a style not devoid of feeling, yet devoid of the element of bombast which sits
not ungracefully upon the historian. They must
sedulously avoid the temptation to impress their
readers with a sense of inferiority in learning or ingenuity to their authors. They must never instruct
or admonish ; or at least, they must never instruct or
admonish their readers, but only themselves.
12. There is accordingly a difference in attitude
towardswhathe readsbetween the reader ofhistorical
literature and the reader ofphilosophical. In reading
the historians, we 'consult' them. We apply to the
store of learning in their minds for a grant of knowledge to make good the lack in our own. We do not
seek to follow the processes of thought by which they
came to know these things ; we can only do that by
becoming equally accomplished historians ourselves,
and this we cannot do by reading their books, but
only by working as they have worked at the original
sources. In reading the philosophers, we 'follow'
them: that is, we understand what they think, and
reconstruct in ourselves, so far as we can, the processes by which they have come to think it. There
is an intimacy in the latter relation which can never
exist in the former. What we demand ofthe historian
is a product of his thought; what we demand of the
philosopher is his thought itself. The reader of a
212
philosophical work is committing himself to the
enterprise of livingthrough the same experience that
his author lived through; if for lack of sympathy,
patience, or any other quality he cannot do this, his
reading is worthless.
4
13. In this respect philosophy resembles poetry;
for in poetry also the writer confesses himself to the
reader, and admits him to the extremest intimacy.
Hence the two things are sometimes confused,
especially by persons who look upon each with suspicion as an outrage on the privacy of the individual
mind; and because the resemblance becomes increasingly evident as philosophy becomes increasingly philosophical, this hostility singles out the
greatest philosophers for peculiar obloquy, and finds
in their writing a mere expression of emotion, or
poem.
Even granting the justice of that description, it
is incomplete. A philosophical work, if it must be
called a poem, is not a mere poem, but a poem of
the intellect. What is expressed in it isnot emotions,
desires, feelings, as such, but those which a thinking mind experiences in its search for knowledge;
and it expresses these only because the experience
of them is an integral part of the search, and that
search is thought itself. When this qualification is
added, it becomes plain that philosophical literature
is in fact prose; it is poetry only in the sense in
which all prose is poetry--poetry modified by the
OF LITERATURE
213
presence of a content, something which the writer
is trying to say.
14. What explains the confusion is that philosophy represents the point at which prose comes
nearest to being poetry. Owing to the unique intimacy of the relation between the philosophical
writer among prose writers and his reader, a relation which elsewhere exists only in fine art or in the
wide sense of that word poetry, there is a constant
tendency for philosophy as a literary genre to overlap with poetry along their common frontier. Many
of the greatest philosophers, and notably those
among them who have been the best writers and
therefore ought to know in what style to write philosophy, have adopted an imaginative and somewhat
poetic style which would have been perverse in
science and ridiculous in history but in philosophy
is often highly successful. The dialogue form of
Plato, where philosophies come to life as dramatic characters, the classical elegance of Descartes,
the lapidary phrases of Spinoza, the tortured metaphor-ridden periods of Hegel, are neither defects
in philosophical expression nor signs of defects in
philosophical thought; they are signal instances of
a tendency that is universal in philosophical literature, and to which it yields in proportion as its
thought is more profound and its expression more
adequate.
15. This provides a clue to the main principle
which must be followed in learning to write philosophy, as distinct from learning to think it. Quite
214
otherwise than the scientist, and far more than the
historian, the philosopher must go to school with
the poets in order to learn the use of language, and
must use it in their way: as a means of exploring
one's own mind, and bringing to light what is obscure and doubtful in it. This, as the poets know,
implies skill in metaphor and simile, readiness to
find new meanings in old words, ability in case of
need to invent newwords and phrases which shall be
understood as soon as they are heard, and briefly a
disposition to improvise and create, to treat language
as something not fixed and rigid but infinitelyflexible
and full of life.
The principles on which the philosopher uses
language are those of poetry; but what he writes
is not poetry but prose. From the point of view of
literary form, this means that whereas the poet yields
himself to every suggestion that his language makes,
and so produces word-patterns whose beauty is a
sufficient reason for their existence, the philosopher's
word-patterns are constructed only to reveal the
thought which they express, and are valuable not in
themselves but as means to that end. The prosewriter's art is an art that must conceal itself, and
produce not a jewel that is looked at for its own
beauty but a crystal in whose depths the thought
can be seen without distortion or confusion ; and the
philosophical writer in especial follows the trade not
of ajeweller but of a lens-grinder. Hemust never use
metaphors or imagery in such a way that they attract to themselves the attention due to his thought;
OF LITERATURE
215
if he does that he is writing not prose, but, whether
well or ill, poetry; but he must avoid this not by
rejecting all use of metaphors and imagery, but
by using them, poetic things themselves, in the
domestication of prose: using them just so far as
to reveal thought, and no farther.
5
16. The reader, on his side, must approach his
philosophical author precisely as if he were a poet, in
the sense that he must seek in his work the expression of an individual experience, something which
the writer has actually lived through, and something
which the reader must live through in his turn by
entering into the writer's mind with his own. To
this basic and ultimate task of following or understanding his author, coming to see what he means
by sharing his experience, the task of criticizing his
doctrine, or determining how far it is true and how
far false, is altogether secondary. A good reader,
like a good listener, must be quiet in order to be
attentive; able to refrain from obtruding his own
thoughts, the better to apprehend those of the writer;
not passive, but using his activity to follow where
he is led, not to find a path of his own. A writer
who does not deserve this silent, uninterrupting
attention does not deserve to be read at all.
17. In reading poetry this is all we have to do;
but in reading philosophy there is something else.
Since the philosopher's experience consisted in, or
at least arose out of, the search for truth, we must
216
ourselves be engaged in that search if we are to share
the experience ; and therefore, although our attitude
to philosophy and poetry, simply as expressions, is
the same, our attitude towards them differs in that
philosophy expresses thought, and in order to share
that experience we must ourselves think.
It is not enough that we should in a general way
be thoughtful or intelligent; not enough even that
we should be interested and skilled in philosophy.
We must be equipped, not for any and every philosophical enterprise, but for the one which we are
undertaking. What we can get by reading any book
is conditioned by what we bring to it; and in philosophy no one can get much good by reading the
works of a writer whose problems have not already
arisen spontaneously in the reader's mind. Admitted
to the intimacy of such a man's thought, he cannot
follow it in its movement, and soon loses sight of it
altogether and may fall to condemning it as illogical
or unintelligible, when the fault lies neither in the
writer's thought nor in his expression, nor even in
the reader's capacities, but only in the reader's preparation. If he lays down the book, and comes back
to it ripened by several years of philosophical labour,
he may find it both intelligible and convincing.
These are the two conditions on which alone a
reader can follow or understand a philosophical
writer: one relating to the reader's aesthetic or literary education or his fitness to read books in general,
the other to his philosophical education as fitting
him to read this particular book. But in addition to
OF LITERATURE
217
understanding his author, the reader must criticize
him.
18. Comprehension and criticism, or understanding what the writer means and asking whether it is
true, are distinct attitudes, but not separable. The
attempt to comprehend without criticizing is in the
last resort a refusal to share in one essential particular the experience of the writer; for he has written
no single sentence, if he is worth reading, without
asking himself 'is that true?', and this critical attitude to his own work is an essential element in the
experience which we as his readers are trying to
share. If we refuse to criticize, therefore, we are
making it impossible for ourselves to comprehend.
That conversely it is impossible to criticize without comprehending is a principle which needs no
defence.
Though the two cannot be separated, however,
one is prior to the other: the question whether a
man's views are true or false does not arise until we
have found out what they are. Hence the reader's
thought must always move from comprehension to
criticism: he must begin by postponing criticism,
although he knows it will come, and devote himself
entirely to the task of comprehending; just as the
writer, however ready and able to criticize himself,
must begin by framing to himself some statement
of what he thinks, or he will have nothing on which
to exercise his self-criticism.
There is accordinglyno contradiction between saying that comprehension is inseparable from criticism,
4033
F f
2i8
and saying that a good reader must keep quiet and
refrain from obtruding his own thoughts when trying to understand his author. Comprehension is
inseparable from criticism in the sense that the one
necessarily leads to the other, and reaches its own
completion only in that process; but in this development, as in all others, we must begin at the
beginning; and the first phase of the process is a
phase in which criticism is latent. In this phase the
reader must refrain from obtruding his own thoughts,
not because he ought to have none of his own, but
because at this stage his author's are more important: criticism is not forbidden, it is only postponed.
19. Granted, then, that the preliminary question
what the author means is answered, and the reader
is qualified to begin criticizing, how should he
proceed ? Not by seeking for points of disagreement, however well founded. If criticism must go
with comprehension, and if comprehension means
sharing the author's experience, criticism cannot be
content with mere disagreement; and in fact, whenever we find a critic systematically contradicting
everything his author says, we are sure that he has
failed to understand him. There are no doubt occasions on which a reader may say of a book, 'for my
part, I do not propose to spend time on it; it seems
to me a mere tissue of errors and confusions.' But
this is not criticism. Criticism does not begin until
the reader has overcome this attitude, and has submitted to the discipline of following the author's
thought and reconstructing in himself the point of
OF LITERATURE
219
view from which it proceeds. When this has been
done, any rejection is of necessity qualified by certain concessions, a certain degree of sympathy and
even of assent.
This implies that criticism has two sides, a positive
and a negative, neither of which can be altogether
absent if it is to be genuine or intelligent. The critic
is a reader raising the question whether what he
reads is true. In order to answer this question
he must disentangle the true elements in the work
he is criticizing from the false. If he thinks it contains no true elements, or that it contains no false,
that is as much as to say he finds in it no work for
a critic to do. The critic is a reader who agrees with
his author's views up to a certain point, and on that
limited agreement builds his case for refusing a completer agreement.
The critic must therefore work from within. His
negative position is based on his positive: his primary
work is to supplement his author's partial account
of some matter by adding certain aspects which the
author has overlooked; but, since the parts of a
philosophical theory never stand to one another in
a relation of mere juxtaposition, the omission of one
part will upset the balance of the whole and distort
the remaining parts; so his additions will entail some
correction even of those elements which he accepts
as substantially true.
20. Criticism, when these two aspects of it are
considered together, may be regarded as a single
operation: the bringing to completeness of a theory
4033
Ff2
220
PHILOSOPHY AS LITERATURE
which its author has left incomplete. Sounderstood,
the function of the critic is to develop and continue the thought of the writer criticized. Theoretically, the relation between the philosophy criticized
and the philosophy that criticizes it is the relation
between two adjacent terms in a scale of forms, the
forms of a single philosophy in its historical development; and in practice,it is well knownthat a man's
best critics are his pupils, and his best pupils the
most critical.
XI
CONCLUSION
i. THE reader who has had patience to follow me
hither will now, at the close of my argument, remind
me of the terms of our compact. In the second
chapter I invited him to read on, if he was willing
to accept for the sake of argument the hypothesis
that traditional philosophy is right in regarding its
concepts as specified, unlike those of exact and empirical science, into overlapping classes. If he has
accepted that invitation, it was on the understanding that we should seewhere the hypothesis led us:
whether to an account of philosophical method
consistent with itself and with our experience of
philosophical thinking, or to a tissue of cobwebs, a
house of cards, a castle in the air, or whatever phrase
best describes the outcome of perverse and misguided reasoning. The time has now come to make
a reckoning; that is my side of the agreement.
Beginning with the question how, on the assumption that they are to overlap, the species of a philosophical genus can be related to each other and to
the genus, I tried to show that the condition would
be satisfied if every philosophical concept were
articulated into a scale of forms where each term
differed from the next in a peculiar way combining differences of degree and kind, distinction and
opposition. If this is so, the problem of defining a concept is not how to find a single phrase
determining its genus and differentia, but how to
222
CONCLUSION
express its whole content, beginning at the bottom
of its scale of forms, in a reasoned and orderly
definition coextensive and identical with a complete
exposition of that concept. It would also follow
that a philosophical judgement must be an organic
whole in which affirmation and negation, universality, particularity, and singularity are all present;
and that it cannot be devoid of a categorical or
existential element. With regard to inference, it
would follow that in philosophy this could be neither
strictly deductive nor strictly inductive, but must
consist in a deepening and widening of our knowledge, transforming it into a higher term on the
same scale of forms; and lastly, after showing in
what sense philosophy on this assumption could and
must be a systematic whole, I tried to argue that
there are certain consequences for the writer and
reader of philosophical literature.
That this is a complete account of philosophical
method I do not for a moment profess ; what I have
written is an essay, not a treatise. But so far as it
goes, I hope it is consistent with itself. Whether
my hopes are justified is a question I must now
leave with the reader. It must also be asked,whether
it is consonant with experience.
2. At this point I must make a confession, though
it betrays no secret that the reader has not long ago
discovered. The question whether this general view
of philosophical thought agrees with experience is a
question which I have not postponed until now, as
the original terms of the compact might seem to
CONCLUSION
223
suggest; I have been putting it piecemeal at every
step in the argument, which has always moved
forward in two parallel lines, asking on the one hand
'what follows from our premisses?' and on the other
'what do we find in actual experience?' This double
procedure, whose reasons could not be set forth
until the eighth chapter, is the only one that can
be either adopted or defended by any philosopher
who has realized the deadliness of Hume's attack on
what Kant was to call the dialectic of pure reason.
'Though the chain of arguments which conduct to
it were ever so logical, there must arise a strong
suspicion, if not an absolute assurance, that it has
carried us quite beyond the reach of our faculties,
when it leads to conclusions so extraordinary, and
so remote from common life and experience. We are
got into fairy land long ere we have reached the last
steps of our theory; and there we have no reason to
trust our common methods of argument, or to think
that our usual analogies or probabilities have any
authority. Our line is too short to fathom such
immense abysses.'
For myself, though I could never plead guilty
to a charge of scepticism, I am too diffident of my
own reasoning powers to believe that I can neglect
Hume's warning; and I know of no way in which
I can travel in the wilds of philosophical thought
except by this double method: compass and deadreckoning, and the finding of my daily position by
the stars.
3. But whose is this experience, the reader will
224
CONCLUSION
ask, by reference to which the argument professes
to be checked ? I can only reply: it is the experience
of those who have worked at philosophy; the experience of others, as recorded in their writings, and
our own, as preserved in our memory. This experience, embodied in the history of European thought,
extends over twenty-five centuries, including the preSocratics at one end and the reader and myself at
the other. To a personwho does not understandwhat
philosophy is, or by what processes it moves, the history of those sixty generations appears as a chaos,
the record of random movements hither and thither
by wandering planets, which no theory of epicycles
can reduce to reason. But this appearance of irrationality, I make bold to say, cannot survive the
discovery that philosophical thought has a structure ofits own, and the hypothesis that in its changes
it is obeying the laws of that structure. Thus, from
the point of view of a rational theory of philosophy,
the past history of philosophical thought no longer
appears as irrational; it is a body of experience to
which we can appeal with confidence, because we
understand the principles at work in it, and in the
light of those principles find it intelligible.
4. Is this a circular argument ? Am I first deriving
from philosophical tradition a certain view concerning the nature of philosophical thought, and then
finding confirmation of that view in the fact of its
agreement with tradition ? And is it not doubly circular, since apart from my assuming that view the
witness whose word confirms it would be dumb?
CONCLUSION
For, except on the assumption I have put forward,
tradition, instead of an audible voice, is only a chaos
of discordant ravings.
This is one of the ultimate questions which in the
opening chapter of the present essay I undertook to
avoid. I shall therefore answer it only obliquely,
since a direct answer is aAArj? aKeifiews olKeiorepov.1
5. Assumption for assumption, which are we to
prefer? That in sixty generations of continuous
thought philosophers have been exerting themselves
wholly in vain, and have waited for the first word
of good sense until we came on the scene? Or that
this labour has been on the whole profitable, and its
history the history of an effort neither contemptible
nor unrewarded? There is no one who does not
prefer the second; and those who seem to have
abandoned it in favour of the first have done so not
from conceit but from disappointment. They have
tried to see the history of thought as a history of
achievement and progress; they havefailed; and they
have deserted their original assumption for another
which no one, unless smarting under that experience,
could contemplate without ridicule and disgust.
Yet it is surely in such a crisis as this that we
should be most careful in choosing our path. The
natural scientist, beginning with the assumption that
nature is rational, has not allowed himself to be
turned from that assumption by any of the difficulties into which it has led him; and it is because he
225
1 The reader who is curious concerning this direct answer

will find it given by implication in ch. viii, 5. 20-21.
226
CONCLUSION
has regarded that assumption as not only legitimate
but obligatory that he has won the respect of the
whole world. If the scientist is obliged to assume
that nature is rational, and that any failure to make
sense of it is a failure to understand it, the corresponding assumption is obligatory for the historian,
and this not least when he is the historian of thought.
So far from apologizing, therefore, for assuming
that there is such a thing as the tradition of philosophy, to be discovered by historical study, and that
this tradition has been going on sound lines, to be
appreciated by philosophical criticism, I would maintain that this is the only assumption which can be
legitimately made. Let it, for the moment, be called
a mere assumption; at least I think it maybe claimed
that on this assumption the history of philosophy,
properly studied and analysed, confirms the hope
which I expressed in the first chapter: that by reconsidering the problem of method and adopting
some such principles as are outlined in this essay,
philosophy may find an issue from its present state
of perplexity, and set its feet once more on the path
of progress.
THE METAPHYSICS OF F.H. BRADLEY:

AN ESSAY ON APPEARANCE
AND REALITY'1
Contents
I. The Current Views of Bradley's
Metaphysical Doctrine
II. The Metaphysics which Bradley
Set Out to Criticize
III. The Principles used in His Criticism
IV. His Own Metaphysical Position
V His Relation to His Successors
VI. His Relation to Modern Physics
229
232
238
241
245
248
1 This essay was written on 25-6 December 1933 and

dedicated to 'K.F.E.': Kathleen Edwardes, who later became
Collingwood's second wife. It was written in a small bound
notebook: Bodleian Library, Collingwood Papers, Dept. 29.
The contents of The Metaphysics of F. H. Bradley overlap
considerably with the second lecture of 'The Nature of
Metaphysical Study', now reprinted in the revised edition of
An Essay on Metaphysics.
This page intentionally left blank
METAPHYSICS OF F. H. BRADLEY
229
/. The Current Views of Bradley's

Metaphysical Doctrine
(1) Mr F. H. Bradley's Appearance and Reality is
generally recognized by English-speaking philosophers as the most important work on their subject
that has been written, at least in English, for the
last fifty years. I have heard it pronounced by no
mean judge the most important philosophicalwork
in English since Hume; and in this opinion
I should concur. But even those who most willingly
recognize its importance do not always, I think,
understand quite correctly its drift. For the most
part, it is regarded as the last word, the reductio
(2) ad absurdum of something called Absolutism, a
kind of Idealism: the last word, because it stated
this doctrine so emphatically and remorselessly
that its absurdities became evident and forthwith
English thinkers began, in reaction against it, to
seek new paths, some in Realism, others in
Pragmatism. By now, Pragmatism has little more
than historical interest; the focus of modern
English thought is on Realism; and Bradley is
thought to stand towards Realism somewhat
as King James the second stands towards the
principles of English freedom and constitutional
government.
To be more precise, it is thought that Bradley's
argument in this work runs (3) somewhat thus.
Everything that we commonly take for real
turns out, on close inspection, to be 'infected with
230
self-contradiction' and therefore unreal. Reviewing
the whole universe of experience piecemeal, Bradley
thus finds himself in a position to jettison, one
by one, all its components; all alike are stigmatized
as 'mere appearance', and for Reality he has recourse
to an Absolute that transcends all our experience, an
ens rationis which, if it exists, would satisfy the claims
of the intellect--claims whose validity Bradley
himself treats with very qualified respect--by being
completely self-consistent and absolutely one.
When it is asked--and the question is commonly
asked, if at all, with (4) no more than a languid
interest--from what source Bradley derived these
strange doctrines, the answer is found in Hegel.
German philosophies, when they die, it has been
said, go to Oxford; and Bradley's absolutism is
regarded as a Hegelianism born out of due time,
long after the Hegelian schools of Germany had
fallen into ridicule and decay.
Now, this view of Bradley's thought, generally
accepted though it is, presents at least two
difficulties. First, it is not easy to account, on any
such view, for Bradley's great and, one might say,
decisive influence on the course of English speculation. A pale and pedantic echo of a dead German
system--how can that have turned the whole
stream of English (5) philosophy into a new
channel? Even if we grant that English philosophy
was a feeble and spineless affair, and Hegelianism
a thing so mighty that in its death, like Samson, it
231
could grind a whole generation of Philistines to
powder, the thing is still a miracle; and if we cannot
make these admissions it is an impossibility.
Secondly, if any weight can be laid on this,
Bradley's own view of his own thought was very
different. It happens that he has answered the
questions whether he was a Hegelian and an
Idealist. To the latter he has replied 'Whether it
[his metaphysical theory] is to be called Realism
or Idealism I do not know, and I have not cared
to inquire' (485, ed. 1930).2 (6) To the former,
'I could never have called myself a Hegelian, partly
because I can not say that I have mastered his
system, and partly because I could not accept what
seems his main principle, or at least part of
that principle' (Logic, I, x, ed. 1922).3 And in
the preface to Appearance he again makes the same
point by referring to his predecessors who have
incautiously insisted on the great claims of Kant
and Hegel.
In this short essay I propose to argue, first, that
the filiation of Bradley's thought has been
misconceived by this popular interpretation, and
secondly, that owing to this misunderstanding his
doctrine has been most gravely misunderstood.
2 All page references are to F. H. Bradley, Appearance and
Reality. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 9th impression, 1930.
3 F. H. Bradley, The Principles of Logic, 2nd edn. Oxford,
Clarendon Press, 1922.
232
//. The Metaphysics which Bradley
Set Out to Criticize
(?) Appearance and Reality is divided into two

books, called, respectively, Appearance, and Reality.
The first, occupying less than a quarter of the
volume, argues in detail that the proper distinction
between appearance and reality cannot be found
by drawing a line between primary and secondary
qualities, nor between substance and its attributes;
nor can reality, as distinct from appearance, be identified with space and time, or motion, or causation,
or activity; nor can it be discovered in the self as
the subject of experience; and the book closes with
a short and stinging attack on phenomenalism and
a criticism of the idea of things in themselves.
(8) The thread connecting these miscellaneous
topics is a polemic against the theory that the
world can be cut in two so that on one side of the
division fall appearances, on the other reality. It
was Galileo, followed by Descartes and Locke, who
put forward that theory in the interest of physical
science by maintaining that primary qualities are
real and secondary apparent only. The first chapter of Bradley's book, therefore, turns out to be a
criticism of this seventeenth-century doctrine: a
short and almost contemptuous criticism because
the work had already been done once for all by
Berkeley. As the chapters proceed, it becomes clear
to an instructed reader that the criticism is gradually (9) focussing itself on certain contemporary
233
metaphysical doctrines; and if we now turn from
Bradley to the English philosophies of the halfcentury preceding him, we shall identify these
without difficulty.
Throughout the nineteenth century, English
writers, scientific and philosophical alike, were in
the habit of maintaining that our knowledge is of
phenomena and nothing more. This was in effect
the legacy of Hume to the nineteenth century:
a legacy which amounted to very much the same
thing whether transmitted
through Kant or
through Reid, by way of Coleridge or James Mill.
All schools of thought were agreed on this fundamental point. Where they differed was on the
further question, (10) whether our thoughts about
reality, as distinct from phenomena, could be
credited with any value. These thoughts, under the
name of Metaphysics, were universally regarded
as something natural and attractive to mankind; but
some maintained that it was idle and pernicious to
indulge them, and that a notice NO ROAD must be
set up at the entrance to their domain, while others
allowed them to be pursued subject to the proviso
that they must not be taken for knowledge.
For the most part, a curious compromise between
these views was adopted. Thus Hamilton (1836,
Lectures on Metaphysics)4 holds that all knowledge
4 Sir William Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics and
Logic, ed. H. L. Mansel and J. Veitch, Edinburgh and
London, W. Blackwood, 1859--60. The lectures were first
delivered in 1836-7.
234
is phenomenal only, being relative to our faculties;
but [n] for this very reason the science of the
human faculties (psychology) takes a privileged
place among the sciences, and is 'the philosophical
study by pre-eminence';5 and for this reason he
bestows on Psychology the name of Metaphysics.
Doubtless this is a strange and confused notion:
knowledge is a mere modification of the substance
mind, therefore, if we can know the mind itself,
we understand knowledge;but to say this is to forget
that whatever knowledgewe can possess of the mind
will itself be, ex hypothesis, phenomenal and not, as
the argument assumes, real. Hamilton assumes in a
breath (a) that all knowledge is phenomenal (b) that
knowledge of the mind itself (psychology) is real:
hence the identification of psychology with (12)
metaphysics. But still more surprisingly he goes on
to assert that 'by inference and analogy we may rise
above the mere appearances which experience and
observation afford',6 and entertain hypotheses about
God, freedom and immortality which will constitute
an Ontology, forming, with Psychology, the other
half of Metaphysics. It is a strange farrago of misunderstood gleanings from Hume and Kant; but it
was influential; Mansel adopted the view and taught
it in Oxford, and his teaching must have been very
familiar to Bradley.
5 Ibid., vol.1., 43. The wording in the original is
'psychology is pre-eminently a philosophical science'.
6 Ibid. 125.
235
Mansel divides Metaphysics into Psychology
and Ontology, regarding it as 'the philosophy of
the facts of consciousness, considered subjectively,
in relation to the mind knowing, [13] and objectively, in relation to the things known.'7 The task
of Ontology, according to Mansel, is to distinguish
Appearance from Reality, and the test for this
distinction is a psychological one. In Cosmology,
it is the
muscular sense of
resistance: in
Psychology, it is consciousness; in Theology, it is
'the sense of dependence and of moral obligation.'8 In all this, Mansel is obviously trying to
rewrite the Critique of Pure Reason and solve the
problems of metaphysics from the point of view
of a philosophy of the human mind in the style of
Hume or Reid. And it must be remembered that
Mansel's Bampton Lectures on the Limits of
Religious Thought9 are the locus classicus for
the argument that God is to be worshipped precisely because (14) he is unknowable, or, in
Bradley's unkind paraphrase, that something is to
7 H. L. Mansel, Metaphysics
or the Science of
Consciousness, 26-7. Metaphysics
first appeared as an
extended article in the 8th edn. of the Encyclopaedia
Britannica in 1857; it was first published in book form in
Edinburgh by A. & C. Black in 1860. A and edn. appeared
in 1866; Collingwood's references are to the 1875 reprint of
the and edn.
8 Ibid. 373. The original reads: 'the sense of dependence
and the sense of moral obligation.'
9 H. L. Mansel, The Limits of Religious Thought. Oxford
and London, John Murray, 1858.
236
be taken for God because we don't know what the
devil it is.
My suggestion is that Bradley's Appearance is in
the first instance a polemic against Mansel. It is
from Mansel that Bradley borrows the antithesis of
Appearance and Reality; it is against the project of
dividing the one from the other that his book is
directed, and that project is the task assigned by
Mansel to metaphysics in his famous Encyclopaedia
Britannica article, which everyone was reading
when Bradley was young.10
If Mansel by his metaphysics gives the clue to
the book's title and main subject (15) matter,
Mansel by his Bampton Lectures gives the clue
to what may be called the book's sub-plot--the
reiterated emphasis on the problem of religious
knowledge. From this point of view the chapters
on Appearance, culminating as they do in a critique of phenomenalism (ch. xi) and of a so-called
metaphysics that falls apart into a psychology
(ch. x) and an empty ontology of things in
themselves (ch. xii), may be understood as an
analysis and criticism of Mansel's philosophical
point of view; a point of view whose owner need
not be named, in 1893, because everyone then
knew where the cap fitted.
The main drive of Bradley's argument, then,
is directed against the Oxford form (16) of the
10 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 8th edn., 1857.
237
Hamiltonian tradition; a tradition descended from
Hume through Reid, but by no means uninformed
of the work done by Continental philosophers
whether in Germany or France. But Bradley also
attacks another tradition, descended from Hume
through Bentham and James Mill: the tradition of
John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer. These two
were notoriously antagonistic--that fact had been
proclaimed by Mill's Examination of Hamilton,
published in the sixties;11 but Bradley favours the
one no more than the other. He names Mill and
Spencer, it is true, and never names Mansel or
Hamilton; this has caused readers to think his
polemic directed mainly or solely against the
former; but it actually proves the opposite. (17) On
the comparatively rare occasions when he wishes
to controvert Mill or Spencer, he names them,
because he wishes the fact to be clear; when
controverting Mansel, he does not name him,
because to an Oxford audience the allusions are
self-evident. And it is obvious enough that to
controvert the well-known metaphysical doctrines
of Mill--the conception of the external world as
permanent possibility of sensation, the conception
of the mind as a mere series of sensations--is no
part of the main task that Bradley has here set
himself.
11 J. S. Mill, An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's
Philosophy. London, Longmans, 1865.
238
///. The Principles used in His Criticism
(18) Negatively, then, Appearance and Reality

is affiliated to the phenomenalist philosophy of
nineteenth-century
England:
the philosophy
according to which all knowledge is of phenomena, and phenomena are relative to the mind that
knows them; doctrines common to every school,
and derived from the tradition of Locke and
Hume. Bradley is delivering a frontal attack on
this tradition, and concentrating his attack on its
right wing (so to say), the more philosophical,
conservative, and learned variety of its doctrine,
as held by Hamilton and Mansel; while at the
same time he engages also the left wing, the more
empirical associationist variety as held by Mill
and Herbert Spencer. The importance of (19)
Bradley's work for the history of English thought
lies in the fact that he is attacking all along the line:
it is the phenomenalist or subjectivist or psychological philosophy as such that is the object of his
polemic. The next question to be raised, then, is:
whence does he derive his positive filiations? If we
have identified his enemies, who are his friends,
his teachers and the sources of his special positive
doctrines?
A moment's thought is enough to convince any
careful reader that this question must be resolved
into another: whence does he derive his working
principles? For Bradley is in this respect like Hume,
239
that the body of his philosophy consists not so much
in the exposition of a doctrine as in the application
of a principle. Hume walks about among the
accepted ideas of philosophy like a sceptical
(20) horse-coper, asking 'from what impression is
that idea derived?' Bradley, in something of the same
spirit, goes about asking 'is that idea consistent with
itself?'
This is one of his two main principles: that
reality must be consistent with itself, and that what
is inconsistent with itself cannot be real, but only
appearance.
The second is, that nothing can be mere
appearance, but that somehow all appearance must
qualify or belong to reality.
Whence does Bradley derive these two principles?
I suggest that he derives them from the philosophy which he is criticizing.That philosophy goes
back to Locke; and Locke's reduction of secondary
qualities to the level of mere appearance turns on
the fact that secondary qualities contradict themselves, (21) the colour of a porphyry column, for
example, being one on this occasion and another
on that. It is the same principle which Berkeley
uses to show that primary qualities too are mere
appearance: what seems small to me, seems large
to a mite, and size is therefore not self-consistent
and hence not real. I am not aware that English
philosophy had ever repudiated this principle;
Mansel himself writes thus: 'an apple, for instance,
is perceived by the sight as yellow, by the taste as
240
sweet, by the smell as fragrant. If the several
objects of sense are distinct realities, the apple is not
one, but many; if, on the contrary, the apple is, as
we are compelled to conceive it, one, it follows that
the impressions of the senses are not real things,
but unreal appearances of that which in itself is
not diverse but uniform' (Metaphysics p. 341, ed. 2.
1875).I2 (22) Mansel is here using the principle to
drive a wedge between appearance and reality;
Bradley departs from him only in going on to use
it so as to destroy the alleged reality thus distinguished, very much as Berkeley goes on to use
against the primary qualities the principle (this
very same principle) which Locke had used in
order to disentangle them from the secondary.
Bradley's argument follows from Mansel's as
naturally as Berkeley's from Locke's.
The second principle, that all appearance must
somehow qualify reality, derives from the same
source. The fundamental doctrine of phenomenalism in every form is that the world as we know it
consists not of realities but of appearances, and that
these appearances or phenomena are relative to the
faculties of the human mind. Thus the mind is a
(23) reality, qualified by the appearances: they are
grounded in it, and reveal its nature by the way in
which they appear. For Hamilton, they reveal the
nature of human faculties; for Mill, they display
the necessary laws of the association of ideas. Every
12 H. L. Mansel, Metaphysics, 341.
241
form of phenomenalism agreed that phenomena
were relative to some reality and somehow served
to qualify that reality; Bradley accepts the principle,
but objects to the way in which it was applied,
namely the doctrine that the reality, to which the
phenomena of the world are relative, can be identified with the self as studied by psychology. Once
more, he is using principles common to himself and
his opponents in order to discredit his opponent's
substantial doctrine. In neither case is he, as some
partisans of his defeated opponents would like to
believe, relying on the aid of German mercenaries.
IV. His Own Metaphysical Position
(24) These being its antecedents, what is the positive doctrine of Bradley's metaphysics? First, that
there is such a thing as Reality; or, as he calls it,
the Absolute; but this he takes as commonplace. And
rightly; for the innumerable nineteenth-century
philosophers who prohibited metaphysics and
derided the conception of an Absolute were, as he
pointed out once for all, 'brother metaphysicians
with a rival theory of first principles' (p. i). The
phenomenalist who says all is appearance either
means nothing, or he means to distinguish appearance from reality and stands therefore committed
to explaining what he means by reality.
(25) Secondly, that appearances somehow all
belong to or qualify reality. He has been much
242
criticized by his successors for degrading finite
things and selves to the level of mere 'adjectives
to reality'; but in the light of his relation to his
predecessors they would understand his meaning
better if they spoke of him as raising these things,
not degrading them, to that level. His polemic is
never against a Realism that takes them for more,
only against a phenomenalism that takes them for
less. I know that in saying this I am exposing myself
to astonished protests: 'have you never read the
opening chapters', I shall be asked, 'in which he
attacks the reality of things and selves in detail?'
I can only reply that it is the interpretation of these
chapters that is in question, (26) and that, having
read the later chapters also, I see in the earlier not
a statement of the author's own view but an account
of the origin and growth of the phenomenalist
philosophy which it is his main purpose to criticize.
Thirdly, that no appearance exhausts reality,
which therefore in the end is inscrutable. This has
been taken for a central Bradleian doctrine; it is
rather to be considered an admission or concession
to his opponents; it is in effect what he grants to
Mansel, and the various ways in which he expresses
it make this clear, for he always states it as something insisted upon by others which he is in no
way concerned to deny. 'It costs little to find that
Reality is inscrutable. It is easy to (27)perceive that
any appearance, not being Reality, is in a sensefallacious. These truths, such as they are, are within
the reach of any and every man' (p.488).
243
Fourthly, that reality is present 'among its
appearances in different degrees and with diverse
values' (p. 488). This is Bradley's way out of the
dilemma that either appearances do not belong to
reality at all but are sheer illusion, or they all
belong to it entirely and equally and all represent
it as it really is. Here for the first time we have a
doctrine not contained by implication in the work
of his opponents, and here too he has especially
expressed his indebtedness to Hegel (p. 318). But
the conception of degrees in knowledge is of
course Lockian, and that of degrees in reality
Platonic: and Bradley's critics who object to his
doctrine (28) on the ground that there is no third
alternative between absolute reality and absolute
unreality,
absolute knowledge and
absolute
ignorance, are not
merely anti-Hegelian or
anti-Bradleian in their polemic.
These four are, I think, the main points in
Bradley's doctrine, and for simplicity they may be
reduced to two, which I shall state thus.
i. There is no such thing as a mere appearance.
The real appears; appearances are appearances of
reality.
This doctrine flatly denies the whole subjectivist
or phenomenalist philosophy, from Locke down to
Mansel and Herbert Spencer. It achieves this denial
by merely pressing home admissions contained in
that philosophy itself. But, simple though the
achievement may seem when it has been effected,
244
it closed an epoch. By (29) making this point,
apparently so obvious, Bradley made it impossible in
future for any philosopher to substitute psychology
for metaphysics, as every philosopher at least in
Great Britain had done since the middle of the
seventeenth century.
I may perhaps point out that, methodologically,
Bradley is here using the conception of overlapping
classes. A distinction has been made between
appearance and reality; Bradley accepts it, but
points out that the things so distinguished overlap
to a vast and unverifiable extent, whereas the
subjectivist or phenomenalist philosophers have
assumed the absence of such overlap.
2. Appearances differ in the degree to which
they represent or exhibit or possess reality.
(30) Here Bradley answers the obvious objection
which any reader would bring forward on grasping
his first point: 'if all appearances belong to reality,
what have you to say about illusion, error, and so
forth?' If appearances do not belong to reality, if
it lies wholly outside and beyond them, all is error,
all is illusion. This is the extreme point of the
phenomenalism to which Bradley is objecting.
If appearances do belong to reality, if it lieswholly
in them, all is truth, all is knowledge, all is intelligence and intelligibility. This is the other extreme
which, in its religious aspect, Bradley spurns as a
'shallow pantheism'; in epistemology it is a naive
realism. To avoid these two opposite (but, as he
245
expressly says, at bottom identical) errors Bradley
puts (31) forward the notion of degrees in truth
and reality.
Here he is passing from the overlap of classes
to the scale of forms, without which further conception that of an overlap of classes must remain
incomplete and unintelligible. For his degrees are
not measurable degrees; they are variations in which
the variable is the same as the generic essence. And
by adopting this notion he is able to accept as his
own the doctrines of the phenomenalism which he
is criticizing,while yet criticizingthem and rejecting
them as inadequate and to that extent untrue.
V. His Relation to His Successors
(32) I turn to the relation between Bradley and
subsequent philosophy. Modern realism has been
in the main created by Cook Wilson and Prichard
in Oxford, and by Russell and Moore in Cambridge.
Now there is one thing common to these four
widely different men: they all began their philosophical career as disciples of Bradley. They all
regard their realism as a revolt against this early
pupilage; but none of them is distinguished for his
grasp of, or interest in, the history of philosophical
thought, and their witness to their own philosophical autobiography is therefore not to be uncritically accepted. I will not (33) go into details; I merely
remark that the realism on which they are all four
246
agreed is in effect an attempt to vindicate the first
of the two propositions in which I have summarized Bradley's metaphysics. They all, like him,
reject phenomenalism and subjectivism; they all,
like him, insist that what we know is reality itself
and not mere appearance. They agree with each
other and with Bradley in believing and maintaining that 'appearances somehow belong to reality';
they differ from each other, and indeed each wavers
in himself, as to the exact 'how'. It might be said
that Bradley's thesis forms a programme or desideratum for future metaphysical research, the question
'how exactly do appearances (34) belong to reality?'
and that subsequent philosophers have been working
at this problem but have so far come to no agreement, and indeed to no individual certainty.
To this extent then I suggest that the modern realists, instead of opponents, are in reality followers of
Bradley; and that his Appearance and Reality,
instead of the last word of a decaying Idealism, is
the manifesto of a new Realism. This is the exact
opposite of the current view; if that view is wrong,
how did the mistake arise?
It arose, I think, because all these disciples forgot
the relation between Bradley and his predecessors,
and therefore failed to distinguish between the
views he stated in order to criticize them and the
statements in which he (35) embodied his criticism.
And this would not have mattered, but for the fact
that, accepting Bradley's first proposition, they
rejected his second, namely the degrees of truth
247
and reality. Had they been convinced on that head,
they could have thought, as he thought, that a
thing could be an appearance and therefore not
ultimately real; nor a fully adequate representative
of reality, and yet no sheer illusion. They would
have been warned against the false dilemma 'either
absolute truth or absolute error', 'either sheer reality or sheer illusion'; and, so warned, they could
have seen, even if they had never heard of Mansel,
that the early chapters of Appearance and Reality
were meant to express half-truths, neither wholly
to be (36) rejected nor yet taken for final. Their
error--in this they all agree--is to take these early
chapters as embodying Bradley's full and mature
doctrine, and then, when they come to the chapter
on degrees of truth, to reject its teaching as equally
inconsistent with that doctrine, and with their own
one-sided rejection of it.
Modern realism is thus a following of Bradley in
his first proposition, and a rejection of his second.
But the agreement is on a vital point, the disagreement on a secondary. What matters both to Bradley
and the new realists is that appearances should
somehow be real; how, is secondary. Bradley thought
he had laid down the main lines of an answer to
the question (37) 'how can appearances be real?' by
laying down the doctrine of degrees; but that doctrine could be expunged from his work leaving
its fundamental message unaffected and its annihilating attack on phenomenalism unimpaired.
Conversely, if modern realism should one day find
248
that the doctrine of degrees is less bleak than it has
been painted, it would not have betrayed its trust
or relapsed into subjectivism.
In envisaging this as a possibility, it is worth
while to remember that the realist school has
never undertaken an examination of the theory of
degrees. It has not been tried and rejected; its turn,
one might say, has not yet come; the school that
takes its rise from Bradley has been up (38) till now
fully occupied with exploring the implications of
his first proposition--working, so to speak, at the
difficult task of convincing itself, after generations
of subjectivism and phenomenalism, that appearances must and do somehow belong to reality--and
has hardly as yet had leisure to ask whether his
second way may not prove fruitful.
VI. His Relation to Modern Physics
(39) There is a wider question which, in conclusion, I should like to consider, though I can do so
only in a tentative manner.
The view which I have taken of Bradley's
philosophy is that it marks the end of an era in
metaphysics, the era which began when Galileo
revived the epicurean doctrine of the unreality of
secondary qualities. That set philosophers off on
a new task: it set them to work on the enterprise
of dividing the world into (a) appearances, relative
to the mind to which they appear, and (b) realities
or reality. (40) Bradley put the helm down and
249
brought the ship about once more by insisting that,
however rightly one could distinguish, one must
not divide: appearances belong to reality, and it is
reality that appears.
Now, Galileo was not merely amusing himself
with a piece of archaism. By insisting that the
primary qualities are real and the secondary apparent only, he was expounding the rationale of a new
method in physical science, the method of concentrating on the primary qualities as alone admitting
or deserving of scientific study and ignoring the
secondary as being neither susceptible nor worthy
of such study. Science is measurement: that was
Galileo's methodological principle; and (41) in
the theory of primary and secondary qualities as
accepted by Descartes and Newton and Locke the
seventeenth century accepted that principle and
found a justification for it in metaphysics.
This harmony between scientific method and
metaphysical
theory
lasted throughout
the
seventeenth century; in Berkeley it felt the first
premonition
of disaster, and thence-forward
physical science, forced out of its seventeenthcentury position as the study of reality, was obliged
increasingly to reconcile itself to the position of a
study of mere appearance. But, accepting this
position with as good a grace as might be, it
continued to use Galileo's methods, and to use
them with conspicuous success. The compromise
seemed to work: science, admittedly confined to
the study of mere (42) phenomena, piled triumph
upon triumph, and left reality to take care of itself.
250
I have not space here to discuss the other side of
the picture: to show how a divorce grew up between
science and the concrete realities of human life, to
consider the conflict between science and religion,
the increasing sense of a peril to moral sanity contained in the growth of scientific technology, and
the gradual emergence of a new attitude towards the
world, namely the historical attitude, which seemed
progressively to approach those very realities from
which science was admittedly receding. Omitting all
that, I have one fact to record, and onlyone.
(43) In 1895 the atom of physical and chemical
science was resolved into electrons. This was the
beginning of a revolution in physics which, within
a generation, had given it a wholly new aspect.
The conception of measurement as known to
Galileo, the conceptions of time and space as the
presuppositions of that measurement, expounded
by Newton,
the distinction between
bodies
and the void in which they move, all this has
disappeared; we have instead a field of force whose
local peculiarities take the place of matter, while
its dynamic qualities are reducible to a kind
of geometry; a four-dimensional continuum in
which no experimental methods known to us can
discriminate spatial from (44) temporal externalities, or distinguish any kind of motion in any
given body from absolute rest.
This new physics, which will probably be
associated with the name of Einstein in the same
way in which the old is associated with that of
251
Galileo, dates in its inception from 1895. Bradley's
Appearance and Reality was published in 1893.
The new metaphysics, ending the era that began
with Galileo, and the new physics, ending the
corresponding era, came to light within a space of
three years. Was this a mere coincidence?
There is at least this resemblance between the
spirit of the two doctrines. Bradley's fundamental
proposition was (45) that appearances are somehow
real: that reality is to be sought, not behind the
appearances, but in a whole where they find each its
proper place. The physics of relativity lays down as
its fundamental proposition that real motions and
apparent motions are not two different kinds of
motions, capable of being separated out so that we
can say 'the motion of the sun daily round the earth
is a mere appearance, whose reality is a diurnal
rotation of the earth'; all different motions have an
equal right to be called real motions; that is, appearances are somehow real. Further, just as Bradley
found the reality of appearances not in their
appearing to a mind, but in their relation to a
Reality of which the human mind (46) is itself only
another appearance, thus rejecting all subjectivism
and all substitution of psychology for metaphysics,
so the relativistic physics, instead of making
motions relative to the mind of an observer--that
is a misunderstanding of it in phenomenalistic
terms, rightly rejected by its exponents--makes
them relative to a frame of reference which an
observer may focus if he likes on his own body,
252
but may equally focus on any other body that he
chooses for the purpose.
I am not suggesting that the new physics owes anything to Bradley or to the new metaphysics: nor yet,
that the new metaphysics is a conscious attempt to
discover the rationale of the new physics. I would
rather suggest that they (47) have been growing up
side by side, parallel manifestations of a new spirit
in thought, largely ignorant of each other and often
contemptuous of each other, yet no less akin than
the physics and metaphysics of the seventeenth
century. Does this imply that a new era is dawning,
in which the harmony that characterized the seventeenth century between science and philosophy
will be re-established? That is a question which
cannot be even tentatively answered without a far
wider review of the present state of thought than
I have here attempted. All I have tried to do is to
place the metaphysical theory of Bradley in its
proper perspective, as closing the era of subjectivism and phenomenalism and inaugurating a new
era (48) whose fundamental axiom is that all
appearances somehow belong to reality; and at the
same time to suggest that this axiom, however
important it may be for metaphysics, is of interest
not to metaphysics alone, but to every department
of thought.
THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN

R. G. COLLINGWOOD AND
GILBERT RYLE1
(i)
Pembroke College
Oxford
9 May 1935
My Dear Ryle,
I am writing to you in the form of a letter some
disjointed observations on your paper in Mind
about Chapter VI of my essay. And I must begin by
thanking you for paying me the compliment of so
long and careful a study of my one single chapter.
I feel this compliment very deeply; so elaborate a
criticism, proceeding from a point of view so remote
as yours evidently is from my own, is more flattering than any amount of eulogy and agreement from
a person (if he exists) who thinks like myself.
1 MS Eng. Lett. D. 194, fos. 1--47. The correspondence is
bound as a dossier; a bound typescript version is catalogued
as MS Eng. Lett. D. 194*. The typescript, copies of which have
been in circulation over the past forty years, contains a number
of errors, which have been corrected in this transcription.
The original letters were paginated by the authors, but the
bound dossier is 'through' paginated: this pagination has been
adopted here. A note indicates where internal cross-reference
is affected.
All abbreviations (e.g. 'props') have been written out in
full with the exception of 'e.g.', 'i.e.', and Ryle's use of '= '.
254 CORRESPONDENCE WITH GILBERT RYLE

You have already expressed to me your regret at
my decision not to publish an answer to your
paper.2 Perhaps you will be partly reconciled to this
decision when you see that this letter, incomplete
and desultory as it is, already runs to twice the
Both Collingwood and Ryle on occasion amplified their
remarks with footnotes or insertions. Where these are clearly
footnotes they have been left as such; where they were obviously intended as additions to the main text they have been
incorporated. All brackets in the text itself are Ryle's or
Collingwood's. Crossings-out have been indicated only where
of some interest and punctuation has been silently corrected
as appropriate.
The correspondence makes reference throughout to Ryle's
article, 'Mr Collingwood and the Ontological Argument'.
This was reprinted in the second volume of Ryle's Collected
Papers together with 'Back to the Ontological Argument',
which was a reply to Errol Harris's defence of Collingwood's
position, 'Mr Ryle and the Ontological Argument'.
Ryle's copy of the Essay is held at Linacre College Library,
Oxford. It is not heavily annotated, but Chapter VI has a
number of marginalia. The passage (126) in which it is argued
that, after Hegel, the Ontological proof 'took its place once
more among the accepted principles of modern philosophy'
Ryle marks with a large exclamation mark. On p. 129, where
Collingwood is discussing the self-referential character of
logic, and that 'it must conform to the rules which logic lays
down, so that logic is actually about itself, Ryle queries the
proposition with the question 'like an English grammar in
English?'; in the next paragraph, against the passage in which
Collingwood argues that logic cannot be indifferent to its
own subject matter as 'by existing, it constitutes an actually
existing subject-matter to itself, Ryle remarks 'but we could
be indifferent to this fact and usually are!'
2 No trace of earlier correspondence has been located.
CORRESPONDENCE WITH GILBERT RYLE 255

length of the paper itself, and is a document which
no editor of a journal would dream of publishing.
But I place it in your hands to be used in any way
you think proper. My aim in writing it has been
to try to discover what the real and essential points
at issue are between yourself and me: this has not
been easy, as you refrain from expressing any constructive or positive ideas of your own except by
the way; but it seemed to me that this was the only
thing that would be worth spending so much time
upon, and if I have done it amiss, I am willing and
anxious to be corrected.
(2) In these notes, I have followed your paper in the
style of a running commentary, and for this purpose
have numbered the paragraphs of your text.3
i.I am afraid that your very first paragraph4
gives me some uneasiness. You speak of 'the point
of view which I represent', and thus attach me
to a certain school of thought. You then say what
this school is; but, very oddly to my mind, you
qualify your ascription of myself to it by the word
'presumably'. You say I am 'presumably to be classified, for what such labels are worth, as an
Idealist'. This puzzles me completely. 'For what
such labels are worth.' If not worth much, why use
them? If worth a good deal, why this apology?
Then, 'presumably'. Why make any presumptions
3 Collingwood's numbering is not perfectly accurate. For
ease of reference page numbers to the article as reprinted in
Ryle's Collected Papers, vol. 2. are provided.
4 Ryle, Collected Papers, vol. 2, p. 101.

at all? Why not see what a man's views are, before
deciding to what class (if for some obscure reason
you must classify them) you shall refer them? And
if (though I don't understand the need) you feel
this urge strong upon you, why presume me an
Idealist? I have nowhere in this essay or any other
publication or lecture so described myself, and I do
not see why you should attach the label to me
without giving some reason. I am afraid I resent
both the label and the irresponsible manner of
attaching it. In point of fact, I was brought up as
a Cook-Wilsonian Realist (we did use that label,
freely, before the war) and since rebelling against
that creed I have been working towards a position
based on what is, for me, almost an axiom (evidently
not for you), that the old dichotomy of IdealistRealist is as out of date in philosophy as the
Gilbertian Liberal-Conservative in politics. In this
enterprise I represent nobody but myself: and
'protest' no particular allegiance to 'Plato, Kant in
his less Humian moods, and Hegel'. In fact, (3)
I protest allegiance to nobody; I regard myself as
free to learn what I can from all the philosophers
whose writings I can read, and the only sin to
which I confess in this matter is that I have not
read as widely or as intelligently as I ought, and in
particular that owing to the poverty of my mathematical knowledge I find it especially hard to learn
from philosophers who write primarily for readers
who are primarily mathematicians. In paragraph i,
then, I complain that you have falsified the issue,

and orientated your criticism not towards my actual
views but towards the views you (rightlyorwrongly)
ascribe to a school or alleged school of thought to
which I do not belong.
2. (a) 'A part of [my] theory is that philosophy
can by the Ontological Argument establish the
existence of . . .'s This mis-states my view. My discussion of the Ontological Proof is not intended to
imply that it forms, so to speak, a contribution to
the body of philosophical doctrine made once for
all like the Theorem of Pythagoras in geometry
and thereafter serving as the argument which 'can
establish' a certain conclusion. It is intended (see
my p. 124, top) to serve as a link between a first
approach to the problem, viz. a mere citation of
some philosophers' opinions, and my own approach
to it, which begins on p. 128. My own view of the
Ontological Proof is that there is 'something in it,'
as we say (see p. 127) but that its defect, in its
traditional form, is that this something is left vague,
and that the term God (as anyone might indeed
guess, who is familiar with the general drift of
neo-Platonic and early medieval thought) has to be
taken as standing for 'that which we are thinking
about when we are thinking philosophically'. When
this is made clear, it is to me also clear that the traditional Ontological Proof will have to be revised
and restated to bring it, so to speak, up to date;
and this is what I have tried to do in (4) pp. 128-33.

(b) 'A priori arguments cannot establish particular matters of fact.'6 I am very far from thinking
Hume and Kant wrong on this point. On the contrary, I share their view--and, in passing, protest
against the implication that I am a kind of philosophical insect that won't take Hume seriously.7
But what you are doing here, I think, is to assume
that whatever really exists is a 'particular matter
of fact', and hence that whatever judgment asserts
or implies existence asserts or implies some particular matter of fact. You not only assume this,
but you ascribe the same assumption to myself; and
hence you ascribe to me the view that the business
of 'constructive metaphysics' is to 'establish particular matters of fact'. This is in fact not my view.
If there is any kind of thinking, as distinct from
perceiving, whose business it is to establish particular matters of fact, that kind of thinking is,
according to me, historical thinking. I believe that
such propositions as 'God exists', 'mind exists',
'matter exists', and their contradictories, do not
assert or deny particular matters of fact; nor do
I believe that they assert or deny anything which
can be adequately described as collections or classes
of matters of fact. To assert or deny propositions
of this kind, with reasons given for the assertion or
denial, seems to me the business of constructive
7tHume (see essay, p. 223)is among the few philosophers
from whom I have quoted a view on a crucial point of
method with unqualified agreement.

or destructive metaphysics; and what, I suppose,
I am objecting to in this sentence of yours is a
question-begging assumption that Hume was right
when he divided all possible subjects of discourse
into (a) ideas and the relations between them and
(b) matters of fact, and then (as his wavering and
inconsistent treatment of mathematics shows)
bestowed very inadequate attention on the relations
between ideas.
(5) 3~4-8 I am very much pleased to find you
expressing general agreement with what I have said
about the merely hypothetical character of the
general propositions in abstract and empirical science.
My only regret is that later you either forget what
I said on this subject or show that after all you
misunderstood it; for in i39 you ascribe to me
the doctrine that these propositions are merely
hypothetical not because they have certain peculiarities proper to abstract and empirical science but
simply because they are general or universal; a doctrine (Bradley's) from which I am at pains to
express my dissent.
5.10 Your 'clarification' of my meaning appears
to consist in distinguishing between singular hypotheticals and general hypotheticals, and pointing
out that I am in effect only dealing with general
hypotheticals but have omitted to make this clear.
I am sorry that I have not made it clear to you;
the fact is that (perhaps unreasonably) I expected
8 Ryle, ibid. 102-3.
9Ibid. 105.
I
0Ibid. 103.

the reader of ch. vi to remember ch. v,where I explicitly confined my discussion to 'general' propositions by saying 'the judgments of philosophy, like
those of science, are universal'. Perhaps however
you have not forgotten this but have assumed that
/ have forgotten and am contradicting it; for you
seem to hold (and wrongly to ascribe to me) the
view that no universal judgment (except perhaps
an enumerative one)11 can be categorical, so that
when you find me now saying that the philosophical judgment is categorical you assume me to
be contradicting my statement on p. 111 that it is
universal.
"t I am of course at a disadvantage in ascribing views to
you: which however I am compelled to do, since no otherwise can I begin to clear up the issue between us. In this
parenthesis I am tentatively allowing (i) (what I have also
tentatively allowed on p. 24 of this letter, below) that you
might call an enumerative proposition (e.g. 'every one of the
eggs I bought was bad') a kind of universal, or general,
proposition. But I am equally willing to allow that you might
not recognize such a thing as 'an enumerative proposition'
but might (ii) say that what has been so called is merely a
number of singular propositions: in which case you would no
doubt say that there is only one kind of universal or general
proposition viz. what on p. 24 of this letter I call an 'anyproposition'. On p. 7, below, I have written as if I ascribed
to you the 2nd of these views. I don't trouble to rewrite either
passage, because I rely on you to understand that the discrepancy between them is merely the measure of my doubt
as to how you would settle a question which, in my opinion,
is only a verbal one.

6.12 I won't press the points about Plato and
the rest, since you object to them and anyway they
are only illustrative. I will only observe that you
reiterate the misrepresentation of my position as
amounting to this: 'that philosophical propositions
state or entail particular matters of fact, i.e. that
they are 'about' a designated entity.' Your idest seems
to express an identification by yourself of things
which to me seem quite different. I do think that
a philosophical (6) proposition may be e.g. about
thought or matter; and I dare say, if I learnt to
use your language, I could call thought or matter
a designated entity; but I could never allow that
it was either a particular matter of fact or a mere
collection of particular matters of fact.
7-12.13 For all this, see what I have said about
5. Your instances about Hitler and Julius Caesar
are rendered irrelevant by what I said in my page
in.14 But I must comment on ii. (a)'The protasis
of a general hypothetical proposition does not
express the assumption that something of a certain
description exists.' To state your meaning fully,
I think you should have added 'or will exist'. For
you take a case referring to something in the future.
Now, if I understand your meaning aright, it seems
12 Ryle, ibid. 103.
13 Ibid. 104.
14 On p. 111 of the Essay, Collingwood argues that universal,
particular and singular overlap and that they represent three
elements present in every universal judgement.

to me erroneous. The hypothetical proposition
'Trespassers will be prosecuted' certainly does not
express any foreknowledge, or any belief however
slightly held, that there will be trespassers; but it
most emphatically does express the assumption
that there will be. To translate into W.E. Johnson's
language, the proposition that there will be trespassers is, not indeed asserted or even believed, but
it is entertained. Had it not been entertained, how
on earth could the landowner have made up his
mind what he would do in the case of someone's
actually trespassing? I suspect, though it is so
horrid a suspicion that I hardly dare express it, that
you are confusing an assumption or pure supposition ('entertaining a proposition') with some rather
low degree of conviction in judgment ('asserting'
it), (b) And why do you say that 'there is no such
animal as anyone'? I am anyone; you are anyone;
every human being you like (capable, Men entendu,
in the context, of suing and being sued) is an
example of 'anyone'. You seem to imply that when
one does not, in making a statement of a general
kind, specify what individual it applies to, it cannot
apply to any individual. Would you seriously argue
in court that 'the notice said Anyone found trespassing will be prosecuted and therefore it doesn't apply
to me; I am not anyone; I am Gilbert Ryle'? It is nonsense, you write, to say 'anyone is found trespassing'.
I disagree. It is not nonsense, it is bad grammar.
In order to be nonsense, I should contend that a statement must be grammatical. 'Some non-trespassers

trespass' is grammar, and
can therefore
nonsense--and is. The 'protasis taken by itself
must be expressed grammatically before it can be
decided whether or not it is nonsense. Taken by
itself, and expressed in English, the protasis is
'someone will be found trespassing'. This is not
nonsense, except to the mind of a logician who
should be so much of a subjective idealist as to
think that if I do not know who will be found trespassing, nobody will be; or so much obsessed by the
ideal of a logic of classes, as distinct from a logic
of universals, as to think that nobody may significantly talk about trespassers unless he is prepared
to answer the question 'what persons are you calling
trespassers?'15
(?) :3- This paragraph16 states very clearly your
misunderstanding of my position. Your first
sentence is correct, except that for 'not hypothetical'
I should have said 'not merely hypothetical', and
regard the distinction as important.17 The second
sentence is correct. The third sentence is fons
et origo mall. 'This must mean', you say; and you
express the alleged meaning 'in language which is
not' mine: or rather, by substituting for it a doctrine
be
15 This paragraph was originally an addition on the

reverse of the facing page and was indicated as such by the
phrase 'see further opposite'.
l
6 Ryle, ibid. 105.
I7t I have made the distinction carefully in this essay, but
I find that sometimes, stupidly assuming it as now clear,
I have allowed myself to say 'hypothetical' meaning 'merely
hypothetical'.

which is not mine, and which I utterly repudiate.
The divergence between your alleged repetition of
meaning in your own words, and my own meaning,
is not one of language. It is one of logical and metaphysical theory. Your theory is that only a singular
proposition can be categorical (I suppose that you
would allowthat an enumerative proposition, perhaps
merely because it is nothing but a compendium
of singular propositions, can be categorical too).
Therefore you foist on me the doctrine that 'every
philosophical proposition is or contains or rests on
a genuine singular proposition'.
My repudiation of this doctrine is so clearly
expressed in my own text that, having noticed
the passage which expresses it, you find yourself
unable to comprehend it at all. You find yourself
unable to 'make head or tail' of my notion that there
are categorical universal judgments in philosophy,
as well as categorical singularjudgments in history,
because, once more ascribing to me a doctrine
which I do not hold and have in fact been at pains
to repudiate, you assume that, when I said that the
universal judgments of exact and empirical science
are merely hypothetical, I meant that all universal
judgments are merely hypothetical. I know of
course that this has been said before now; but
I think I could express the main point of the
chapter to which you are objecting if I said that in
my opinion it is an example of the fallacy a dicto
secundum quid (from the universal judgments of
science) ad dictum simpliciter (to universal judgments in general).

(8) Perhaps I may comment here on a point
which occurs in this [paragraph?] and also later
in 46.l8 Here you say 'this must mean': there you
refer to 'all the possible meanings of the expression'. These two forms of words evidently express
one and the same kind of idea, and the idea seems
to me a very odd one. Your two phrases suggest
that you think some kind of a priori argument can
be used in order to discover the meaning of somebody's words: as if one said 'the remaining angle
must be 45', or, 'all the possible kinds of triangles
are equilateral, isosceles and scalene'. In the case of
abstract science I recognize the appropriateness of
such language: and also (rather differently) in the
case of philosophical reasoning. But the meaning of a
certain form of words used by a certain person on
a certain occasion is a particular matter of fact; and
I do not see how such a thing can be determined
by this kind of a priori reasoning. In reading 13
I find myself asking 'why do you say must mean?
What is the necessity, and by what proof would
you justify your statement?' And in any case what
you say I must mean is something I do not mean.
Similarly, in 46 I ask 'how do you know and how
can you prove that these are the only possible
meanings?'--the more so as what I actually mean
is not included among them.
(9) i4.19 I omit discussion of the parenthesis
because anyhow you describe it cavilling, that is,
I presume, you do not subscribe to it.
18Ryle, ibid. 12, foot of page.
I
9Ibid. 105.

15-19.20 These comments are becoming intolerably long, and therefore I say no more about
Anselm v. Russell or any other cause celebre of the
past. See what I have said about 2, above.
20. 'The slogan, essence involves existence'21
of course means that the essence of something
x involves the existence of x. You then say that,
properly, there is an essence only 'of some general
character or description or predicate'. Is this true?
I should have thought not. I should have thought
that there is, e.g., an essence of Man (your own
instance), and that this essence is itself a 'general
character or description or predicate' of men, not
the essence of such a general character, etc. Perhaps
this is only a slip in writing: you do not seem to
build anything on it.
23-9.22 Again (see remark on 15-19) I will not
confuse the issue between yourself and me by going
off into further discussion of the Ontological Proof.
30. 'There is a sense in which any character
whatever involves existence.'23 I am startled by this
flagrant contradiction of what you yourself have
admitted in 3-4.24 There, you agreed with me
that, to say a square has its diagonals equal, we need
not believe any squares to exist; which implies that
the possession of a certain character by squares, viz.
equality of diagonals, does not involve existence;
20 Ryle, ibid. 106-7.
2
I Ibid. 107.
2
22 Ibid. 108-9.
2
3Ibid. 109.
4Ibid. 102-3.

and if so, surely it is untrue that any character
whatsoever involves existence. I do not know how
to explainthe contradiction; whether, since you have
just been speaking of Russell, you have momentarily slipped over from the meaning of the word
existence which we are assuming in this discussion
to the Pickwickian sense of it found in Principia
Mathematica (*24.O2, where a class is said to exist
when it 'has (10) one or more members' and the
mathematical context shows that none of these
members need in our sense exist, so that in our
sense the class does not exist either); or whether
you are loosely saying 'any character whatsoever
involves existence' when (as your example of the
Prime Minister suggests) you mean to say 'the
possession of any character whatever by an actually
existing thing involves existence'. For it is surely
obvious that 'any character whatsoever' e.g. absolute
security in the case of an investment, complete
freedom from loss of power by friction in the case of
a machine, infallibility in the case of a man, does
not involve existence. A perpetual-motion machine
has a certain character--I believe hundreds have
been patented with full descriptions--but no such
machine exists. Such characters or essences are
characters or essences of nothing: and there are
other characters or essences which may, but need
not be, characters of something, e.g. to quote
your own case in 22, the character of being
President of the United States, for in your words

'The United States may have no president.'25
I am therefore left entirely at a loss as to what this
paragraph could mean.
(n) 40.2& Here begins your criticism of my own
argument. You begin with subsidiary Bone no. i:
that I am 'at pains to show that a logician who
denies (your italics) the existence of any instances
of logically regular thinking must be wrong because
he himself is producing an instance of that which
he denies to exist'. This, you say, is beside the point,
'for (general) hypothetical propositions do not deny
the existence of their subjects, they only do not
affirm or imply their existence'.
I cannot help thinking that you have misunderstood the run of my argument. No doubt this is
my own fault; but as you have raised the point
I will explain it.
Look back at my two paragraphs, please, which
become your 36, 37.2? In the first, I do make exactly
the point which you say I ought to make and
complain that I have not made it; and I have therefore a counter-bone to pick with you for misrepresenting my argument in order to criticize it; but a very
little bone, for your long citation of my text is a
25 Ryle, ibid. 107. At this point Collingwood overlooks
a paragraph in his own numbering of the paragraphs in
Ryle's article and so what should have been 41 becomes 40.
26 Ibid. in.
27 At this point in his article Ryle quotes, verbatim,
Chapter VI, 7 (pp. 129-31) of the Essay, omitting only the
first paragraph.

perfect guarantee of good faith and enables any
reader to correct the misrepresentation for himself.
In the second paragraph, instead of merely
repeating the argument of the first mutatis mutandis,
I assumed that the reader would do this for
himself, and instead I illustrated the argument.
Had I written out the whole of what I expected the
reader to think, I should have written something
like this:
'Logic not only discusses, it also contains, reasoning; consequently, whenever a logician argues a
point in the theory of inference, he is producing an
instance of the thing under discussion; and, since he
cannot discuss without arguing, he cannot discuss
any point in the theory of inference without doing
so. Consequently, in so far (12) as it necessarily
contains reasoning, the theory of reasoning cannot
be indifferent to the existence of its own subject
matter; in other words, the propositions which
constitute the body of that part of logic cannot be
in substance hypothetical. For example, if a logician
could believe that no valid reasoning anywhere
existed, he would merely be disbelieving his own
logical theory.'
I did not write that out, because I did not wish
to insult and bore my readers; I knew that anyone
who had read the preceding paragraph could see
it all for himself, and (since one must sometimes
make of a reader either the one demand or the
other) I would rather ask my reader to think a
point out for himself, when the materials are all

explicitly before him and he has only to change
the mutanda according to a formula which is given,
than ask him to submit to the insult of having it
assumed that he cannot do so, and the boredom
of reading, in hopes of finding something substantially new, a passage containing nothing that
he could not have reached for himself almost
mechanically. This is only one of a hundred places
in the book where I have adopted that alternative;
I know that boring one's reader is the one deadly
sin in a writer and that le secret d'ennuyer c'est tout
dire; I never puzzle him wilfully, and do honestly
try to be very plain, but if on a marginal case I find
myself asking 'shall I run a slight risk of puzzling
him here or a slight risk of boring him?' I choose
the former. And I think my choice justified. You,
for example, have been so far from bored that you
have written a whole article of nearly 7,000 words
about my one chapter of 5,000 words.
But, you will reply, sticking to your point, my
sentence (italicized above), about a logician who
does not believe that valid (13) reasoning anywhere
exists, is not really an example; for a hypothetical
proposition does not deny, it only abstains from
asserting. To this I say that if a person both
expounded a theory of the nature of x's, and also
denied that x's exist, he would thereby be showing
that the propositions enunciating his theory about
them are merely hypothetical. This you will surely
admit, but ask 'why take that case, when it is so
logically wasteful a case? Why not take the case of

a person who expounded a theory of the nature
of x's and only regarded it as an open question
whether x's exist?' I answer, because I am not inventing my example, I am taking it from the same
source as the immediately preceding example at the
end of your 36, viz. Bradley's Logic, or (if you
like) a popular and perhaps superficial view of
Bradley's Logic, according to which (a) all universal
propositions are hypothetical, and (b) all inference
is ultimately invalid.
I have a lot more that might be said about
Subsidiary Bone no. i. For example, I do not feel
at ease about the man who denies the occurrence
of genuine singular propositions without producing one. I should have thought such a denial would
begin by stating what is to be denied, and this
would be someone's view (e.g. 'Aristotle, Mill or
some other logician says so-and-so, and this, I hope
to show, is wrong') and here at once is a singular
proposition if not two;28 and would in the course
of its development fall into such statements as
'This proposition, falsely described in that way by
that logician, is by myself here and now correctly
described as follows'. And I have no idea whatever
as to how anyone could 'argue against the occurrence of syllogisms in Disamis by [producing]
syllogisms in Baroco'. But in the main I believe
that you are here really agreeing with my own
28^ Or equally singular, if, no one being named, the logician
put up a man of straw, and refuted him.

contention. (14) When you say 'this might per
accidens be so' you appear to me to be granting all
I am contending for, since the qualification per
accidens only arises because you are objecting to
what I have called the logically wasteful character
of my example. If I ask you outright: can a logician expound satisfactorily a satisfactory theory of
inference, without in the course of his exposition
using inferences and thus showing that he believes
inferences to exist? I feel fairly confident that you
will answer, No. (But see further, below, p. 16.) You
might distinguish, and say 'In arriving at a theory
of inference, a logician must doubtless infer; but in
stating the results at which he has finally arrived
he need be (and indeed perhaps can be) using no
inferential forms of expression; the actual doctrine
arrived at will be stated, not as inferences, but as
propositions'.
To this I should reply that I do not accept the
distinction as anything more than a false abstraction. The result of an inference, forming a doctrine
or theory about a subject, is stated not as something independent of the inference by which it has
been reached, but as the result of an inference, and
of that inference. I do not think that we can even
understand the conclusions reached, unless we
understand the arguments by which they have
been arrived at; and if I were asked what someone's theory of inference is, I should regard myself
as failing to answer the question unless I gave some

account of the arguments on which his 'theory'
rested, as part and parcel of the theory itself.29
41. Second Subsidiary Bone. Why do you say
that I do 'not seem to remember' the existence of
such mathematicizing logicians?30 Surely, in reading
my essay as a whole, you must have noticed that my
usual practice is to refrain from naming persons
who have committed (in my opinion) what I regard
as fallacies. You must have noticed the personalallusions, e.g. in the discussion of 'precarious margins'-to mention only one, the reference to Moore at the
end of p. 47 and beginning of p. 48: or the reference to Mill under the head of identified
coincidents. I have inserted an exposition of the
main principles of Croce's logic in ch. Ill 2,8, and
of Gentile's, ibid. 9, and gone on to criticize them
both as fallacious, 10-13. But, again, neither is
named.
You have a right, if you wish, to ask why I adopt
this practice. It is only in part a question of good
manners. But that does enter into it; and there my
general rule is that I mention names only honoris
causa. For example, I owe much to Ross's book
on The Right and the Good; and on p. 78 I name
him as having, in discussing the relation between
pleasure, knowledge, and virtue, explained them
(I think rightly) as constituting a scale of forms: but
29 These two paragraphs (from 'You might distinguish' to
'the theory itself were originally an addition on the reverse
of the facing page.
3 Ryle, ibid. 112.

in that very passage (p. 79) mentioning Joseph's
doubt whether pleasure is a good at all, I do not
name Joseph because I differ from him; and where
I criticize Ross's calculus of goods, quoting his
actual words, (15) pp. 71-2, I do not name him.
But, going beyond the question of manners
(which no doubt might be called rather a question
of cowardice or dislike of coming into the open
and saying 'Thou art the man; de te fabula
narratur') my real reason is that in the work of any
competent philosopher I find that the part played
by systematic fallacies is partial only; repeatedly,
when real difficulties arise, his insight into the
subject, sharpened by the sense of the difficulty,
leads him to reject the fallacy even at the cost of
inconsistency and to adopt a better procedure
than that which he had followed, wrongly as
I believe, when he thought it was plain sailing.
Thus, Ross will adopt the 'fallacy' of calculation
(as I think it) in comparing goods within one of
his three categories; but when he comes to the relation between them, although to be consistent he
ought to have stuck to it and insisted that, here too,
one thing is better than another and therefore
must be better by a definite and therefore calculable amount, he drops this principle and breaks
through into what I think the right method.31 Now,
31 At this point Collingwood had struck through the
sentence T have pointed out the same thing in Mill (p.79),
once more naming him when I think him right, and not when
I think him wrong.'

this being so, a philosopher named as the victim
of a fallacy might (certainly in a great many cases,
perhaps in all) say to me: 'You pillory me unfairly;
on page x, it is true, I do fall into your fallacy; but on
page y I correct it; you ought to take my work
as a whole, and interpret x in the light of y; if you
did so, you would see that the error was only a
temporary slip at worst; and, at best, you might
wonder whether it was not merely the explorationof
a provisional point of view.' I add that last sentence
because many philosophers do in fact greatly suffer
from a type of criticism which, because the critic
is too impatient to read their books through, identifies their own views with views stated (for discussion and modification in subsequent pages) at the
beginning.
(16) 42. Subsidiary Bone no. 3.32 I object to your
parenthesis. Logical propositions are not only
sometimes but (as you say) generally--I would say,
always--logical propositions, and therefore propositions, and therefore instances of that which, in
the theory of propositions, we are discussing.
I have a suspicion as to how you would answer
this. If I am wrong, I apologize in advance. I fancy
you might reply in either of two ways.
(a) 'There is no such thing as the theory of
propositions in general, for there is no such thing
as "propositions in general": there is no such entity
as the general nature of propositions, which it is
32 Ryle, ibid. 112.

the logician's business to explore;* there is only
this proposition and that proposition, and the logician who analyses such a proposition as "this is
a table" need not believe that it is true while he is
analysing it, nor need he even believe, for the
purposes of his analysis, that anyone is making
or ever has made it. His analysis remains good, if
it is good, irrespectively of any such condition.'
If you had said that, I should have replied that
the logician in analysing 'this is a table' is not
analysing that proposition as itself, but only as
an example of one kind of proposition; and that
his analysis, to hold good, must hold good not
simply of that proposition but of every proposition belonging to that kind. This brings me to the
second alternative, which I suspect is the one you
would adopt.
(b) Beginning as in (a), down to the asterisk: *
'there is only this kind of proposition and that kind
of proposition; and a logician who analyses one
kind of proposition may do so without using any
of that kind in his analysis, and even without
believing, for the purpose of his analysis, that any
of that kind occur.'
I cannot answer this without (as I am glad to do,
but I fear it may be tedious) 'giving myself away'
rather completely. I do not really believe that the
different kinds of propositions (or of inferences)
stand to one another in the relation implied in
the view I have ascribed, tentatively, to yourself.
I believe that they are (17) interrelated in a very odd

way, and I fear that in stating my belief I shall seem
to you to be uttering the most monstrous falsehoods.
I believe that when, in actually thinking about
any subject whatever, we 'make' or 'assent to' a
proposition about it, and when this proposition is
e.g. a negative proposition, 'it is not yet noon', this
is never (though it may very well be the whole of
what we say) the whole of what we think. I believe
that when I think and say that it is not yet noon,
I must also be thinking, though very likely not saying, that it is about half-past eleven. And I believe
that assent to any negative proposition implies
(I hope you see from the preceding sentence what
I mean by implies here) some affirmative proposition assented to, about the same subject, at the
same time. I believe that assent is also implied to
other propositions about the same subject, e.g. 'if it
had been noon, the hands of my watch would have
stood at such and such a position.'
Thus it seems to me that the individual 'proposition' assented to on any given occasion is assented
to only in a context, never by itself; and this context
is not a fortuitous context but a necessary one;
I mean, 'it is not yet noon and the sun is shining'
won't do as a substitute for 'it is not yet noon and it
is half-past eleven'. The context is not (may I say?)
a merely psychological context, consisting of anything else that we may happen to be thinking at the
time; it is a logical context, consisting of other
things which if we didn't think we couldn't think
what ex hypothesi we are thinking.

Further: I believe that this logical context
must have a certain logical structure. I believe, for
example, that there are always in it affirmative and
negative elements, as in the above example; also
that there are always in it categorical and hypothetical elements; also, that there are always in it
prepositional and inferential elements. I believe
that in any example of real thinking all these
elements are present; although, as I have said, they
are certainly not all ordinarily (perhaps ever)
expressed in words, (18) and although our degree
of attention to them may vary widely, so much
indeed that in some cases we may be surprised to
learn that this or that element was present at all.
I have spoken of 'all' these elements. When I say
'all', I am making a big assumption: I am assuming
that there is a certain complex of element-types
which forms a whole, and that every example of
real thinking contains an example of every elementtype contained in this whole. I ought, therefore, to
be able to give an exhaustive account of this whole.
I cannot do this. The best I can do is (i) to suggest
that the old-fashioned formal logic contains one
attempt to do it within limits: its doctrine being, as
I understand, that any proposition whatever must
have a certain quality, a certain quantity, a certain
relation and a certain modality, so that according
to this doctrine the complete whole, in the case of
propositions, consists of those four element-types
each admitting of alternative variants (ii)to observe
that Kant modified this by pointing out that in any

example of real thinking we have not one only
but two (or even three) element-types under the
head of, e.g. quality alone, bringing the number of
element-types up to twelve (so that the forms
which old logic regards as variants Kant regards
as element-types). I do not know how far this
analysis ought to be carried. But I feel fairly confident that, in any example of real thinking, we
do find on analysis that a good many constant
element-types are regularly to be found.
Now, I think that what, in the statement
tentatively ascribed to you, I have called kinds of
propositions, may be one of two things. They may
be what I am here calling element-types, and in that
case any example of real thinking will contain within
itself an example of every kind of proposition.
Or they may be (I think--I admit it for the sake of
argument) varieties of proposition which are not
element-types, but are merely variants or alternative forms of this or that one element-type. In the
former case, every kind of proposition (or inference, for that matter) which the logician studies
must be an element-type (19) of which an instance
is present in the real thinking done by himself as
logician. In the latter case, of course this need not
happen.
Lastly, I believe that the main task of logical
theory is to ascertain, so far as one can, what I have
called the logical structure of real thinking and the
element-types involved in that structure. I expect
you would entirely deny this, and maintain that
z8o CORRESPONDENCE WITH GILBERT RYLE

when the logician speaks about kinds of propositions he means not element-types but alternative
varieties. I will not go on to argue that point, I will
only observe that logicalatomism, although I recognize the very important work which it can do in the
analysis of a proposition taken singly, begins by
begging the question which I am here declining to
argue, in assuming that when we simultaneously
assent to a number of propositions (it is not yet
noon, it is half-past eleven, had it been noon the
hands of my watch would both have pointed
upwards, etc.) we are not thinking simultaneously
a complex of thoughts which must be thought all
together if it is to be thought at all, i.e. a complex
having a logically necessary structure which is
itself an important subject for logical study, but
merely an assemblage of thoughts each of which
presents to the logician only the problems arising
out of itself taken by itself.
I know that I have expressed myself very crudely
and badly, but I trust to your goodwill to get out
of it some glimmering of what I am at.
Returning to 42. I also object to your examples.
You have stated my main objection yourself in
43.33 The grammarian may write about Latin
grammar in English, whose grammar is different;
the educationist may teach his pupils how to teach
geography, but his teaching is not a teaching of
geography; the signalling instructor cannot teach
signalling by signalling, for his pupils ex hypothesi
33Ryle, ibid. 112.

begin by simply not knowing the Morse or semaphore code; Aristotle wrote his poetics in prose.
These have no connection whatever with the
Ontological argument or with (20) my thesis about
logic.
44.34 I have tried to state my counter-case in the
foregoing pages. But perhaps you will bear with me
if I repeat to this extent. If you try (e.g.) to 'talk'
to a pupil, for any length of time, about negative
propositions exclusively in the affirmative ones, I am
sure you will fail. You may succeed in torturing
the negative propositions you wish to convey to him
into verbally affirmative forms, but the negative
meaning will be there all the same. So about singular and general. As to relational and attributive,
I am not in my own mind clear whether these are
mutually exclusive, or whether it may not be necessary to drag in relational attributes; and in any
case, granted that these kinds of propositions exist,
I am not sure whether they are varieties or elementtypes. If the former, we differ, I fear, about the main
task of logic. If the latter, my contention stands.
Similarly about the syllogism. I have noticed that
even logicians who attack the syllogism as invalid
constantly, even in discussing it, use syllogistic
arguments. I suspect that it is an element-type
of inference, and that you could not represent
a reasoned discussion of the syllogism without
using it. Of course I here imply that you can 'use'
a syllogism without saying explicitly in words all
34Ibid. 112.

the various things which go to make it up, i.e. that
'enthymeme' is for the logician identical with syllogism, and differs from it only for the rhetorician
(stylist).
45. 'Use the instances as illustrations.'35 It makes
no difference whether he does or not. I am afraid
that when I have spoken about 'producing an
actual instance' I have misled you, by using the
word produce, into thinking that I mean 'produce
for purposes of illustration'. I did not mean that.
And I am well aware that, only too often, a logician
'produces' in his own work an instance of a certain
type of reasoning without noticing that it is an
instance of that type.
46. 'All the possible meanings.'36 I have
protested already against the fallacy contained in
this phrase, in what I have said on 13.
47.37 See on 45.
48. What do you mean by logical principles?38
I find that phrase ambiguous. The 'laws' of identity, contradiction and excluded middle are, I (21)
believe, generally called logical principles; and
I think it true that they 'cannot be stated save in
propositions which exemplify them'. But you seem
to imply that the statement of 'what a singular
proposition is' is an instance of what you mean by
a logical principle. I should hardly so describe it.
But let that pass. You suggest ascribing to me the
doctrine that a logician's theory of the affirmative
35 Ryle, ibid. 112.
3f
)Ibid. 112.
38 Ibid. 113.
"Ibid. 113.

proposition must be an affirmative proposition,
of the negative a negative, and so on. This sounds
absurd.
I will try to come as close to this suggested
doctrine as I can, I should say (a) that no theory
of the affirmative (e.g.) can be advanced or thought
out unless the same is done with a corresponding
theory of the negative. The various problems of
logical theory cannot be treated altogether in isolation from each other, (b) That no part of these
complex problems can be treated without using
in the treatment all the forms of proposition etc.
which constitute necessary elements in logicaldiscourse, (c) That therefore (to take your example)
the singular proposition, granted that it is agenuine
and necessary form, and not a mere 'variant' as
I have above called fortuitous logical forms if they
exist, can only be described (a theory of it stated)
(a) in a context of descriptions of other logical
forms (/3) in a discourse containing instances of
those logical forms. Similarly with syllogism. If a
logician thinks it a mere chimaera or superstition,
he will give no account of what it is (for it is
nothing, according to him);and if he is right, for
that very same reason there will be no syllogisms
in the exposition of the theory describing it.
49 39 Your first sentence here is most interesting
to me. It suggests that, as a logician, you not only
embrace (which at least when the embrace is a
doctrine, may be done inadvertently) but deliberately
39 Ibid. 113.

propound what I regard as the fallacy of verbalism:
I mean, the (22) doctrine that what logic studies is
not thoughts but words. For my term '[the] subject
matter [of logic]' (quoted by you as lately as 46)
you here substitute by implication the term 'the
actual wording of propositions', and, in making
that substitution, you assume (a) that a single
proposition might be 'worded' in two different
ways (b) that if it were, the difference would be a
difference relevant to logic, a thing to be inquired
into by the logician as such. I attribute this doctrine
to you because you gloss my phrases 'logic cannot
be indifferent' to the existence of its own subject
matter', 'in logic essence involves existence', as
meaning that the essence of logical doctrines or
principles involves, not their existence or the existences of instances of them (e.g. of propositions
conforming to the types which they describe) but
the existence of certain forms of words, admittedly
(since they may be alternative forms, you think, for
one and the same proposition) not necessary to the
propositions which they can express.
You may (I don't know, but I hope you will)
protest that you have no idea of holding such a
doctrine yourself, but, in despair of finding any
reasonable meaning for my phrase, attribute to it
an entirely unreasonable one based on the horrid
assumption that / hold this doctrine. But you
cannot logically take that position. For if you did,
you would be guilty of suppressing in your list of
all the possible meanings of my phrase, one very

obvious one which you might have expressed thus:
'(c) If he means that a given logicalprinciple involves
that a given logician should assert the propositions
which he does assert about it, I challenge him to
deduce from the principle of the syllogism the
doctrines (however worded) which Mill or Russell
propounds about it.' I feel that / ought to challenge
you to explain why you omitted that alternative,
unless it was because you consciously maintain, or
inadvertently (23) assume, that Mill's Logic and
Russell's Principia consists not of propositions
affirmed but of words printed. And my suspicion
that this is your own view is strengthened by your
description of either one or other logical work, in
the closing words of your paragraph, as a 'volume'.
This is either a nasty slip of the pen or the expression of what I must think a really fundamental
misconception. A volume is a collection of pieces
or printed paper bound in a cover. Two copies of
Mill's Logic (in one-volume form) are two volumes,
but they are one treatise. If you say that the logical
work is the volume, then (since in speaking of
Mill's Logic you are evidently speaking of one
thing) which volume are you talking about? Yours
or mine? And I notice that the same assumption is
made in your next 'possible meaning' (d) in 50.4
For you gloss your own words 'it is part of the
meaning of this proposition that it should exist' as
being synonymous with, and more clearly stated
40 Ibid. 113.

in, the words 'that the truth of what the proposition states depends upon and so implies that this
proposition should be written or spoken as and
when and where it is'.
I could follow your meaning, though I should
utterly dissent from it, if you said outright that
a proposition is the words in which it is stated, and
that Mill's Logic is this volume of printed pages,
etc. But you do not even say this consistently,
though your general argument in 49-50 implies
it; for you speak of one and the same proposition
being 'worded differently'. The only sense I can
make of these is on the hypothesis that you are
not clear in your own mind whether what in that
sentence you call one proposition worded in two
different ways is one proposition (as you there
say) or two different propositions (as your general
argument in this passage assumes).
(24) 51.41 This paragraph is very important
from my point of view because I think it reveals
more clearly than any other passage the difference
which separates us on a point of logic and a corresponding point of metaphysics.
You seem to me, in this paragraph, to be arguing
on the assumption, not this time attributed as a
possible heresy to myself but accepted unquestioningly by you, that any general proposition must
belong to either one or the other of two classes.
I will, if I may, refer to these as 'any-propositions'
41 Ryle, ibid. 113-14.

and 'every-propositions'. I wish to maintain that
there are also what I will call 'all-propositions'.
(a) any-propositions. These are what you call
general hypotheticals, which do not depend for
their truth on the existence (in our sense, not in the
Russellian sense I have quoted above) of any of the
things to which they apply. In your 3 you accept
my account of these and my description of arithmetical and geometrical propositions as belonging
to this type.
(b) every-propositions. These I think you are
assuming in this passage as a kind, and the only
possible kind, of general categorical. They apply
to every instance of a certain class, and depend for
their truth upon the existence (in our sense) of these
instances.
I say that you assume this, because it is more
than once made clear in 51-2 (and it seems clear
elsewhere in your article) that, according to your
own view, knowing that some kind of thing exists
is the same as knowing what instances of it exist.
It is only in the light of this assumption as a fixed
point in your thought, that I can understand why
you should think that when I say about logic
'essence implies existence', I must mean 'a perfectly
general truth like a logical principle implies [the
existence of this and that proposition exemplifying
it]'. (N.B. I substitute the words in brackets for your
own words 'a particular spoken or (25) printed
occurrence', because I wish to separate the question
whether a 'logical principle' about e.g. propositions

is an enumerative proposition about a number of
propositions, from the question whether a proposition is or is not merely certain spoken sounds
or printed marks: see what I have said on 49).
Clearly you are making this assumption when
you say that what I am asserting, when I assert
the existence of propositions, is the existence of
the actual propositions propounded by logicians.
This implies that my proposition that propositions
exist is an enumerative proposition; and since I have
never said this, you must be saying it because you
believe (as the general drift of your argument
repeatedly shows you do) that the only way in
which a general proposition can be categorical is
by being enumerative.
With this logical doctrine is bound up a metaphysical doctrine to which, if I understand you
rightly, you also subscribe: viz. that what exists is
an assemblage, or various assemblages, of 'particular matters of fact'. These two doctrines underlie
your whole argument; and your acceptance of them
runs so far as to interpret my meaning at every
point in the light of them, i.e. on the assumption
that I too share them and that whatever I say is
meant by me to be in harmony with them.
But in fact I am quite consciously, in my essay,
attacking these assumptions. I will admit for the
sake of argument that there are any-propositions
and every-propositions; but I contend that there
are also all-propositions, or (as some logicians have
called them) 'true universals' having a categorical
character, i.e. they are not enumeratives, and yet

they are not indifferent to the existence of the
things to which they apply, but are of such a kind
that their truth depends on that existence. I regard
such propositions as especially characteristic of
philosophy. I have not said that they (26) are peculiar
to philosophy; for the purposes of this essay all
I am committed to saying is that they are found
there and have there a high degree of importance.
At the same time, I am committed to the view that
the subject matter of philosophy is not a mere
assemblage of matters of fact; once more, I have
not said that the subject matter of e.g. empirical
science or history is merely such an assemblage,
only that the subject matter of philosophy is not.
Without proceeding to the question whether you
or I are right on this logical and metaphysical
point, important though that is, I feel bound to
point out that your method of criticizing me has
consistently been (a) to assume the truth of the
view I am attacking (b) to assume (flatteringly, no
doubt) that because it is true I share it with you,
and then (c) to show, that my attack on it is not only
unsuccessful, but since I assume it, nonsensical.
This fundamental petitio principii is probably the
reason why my study of your criticisms has not
convinced me that I am mistaken in my fundamental contentions; because they seem never to
touch these contentions.
52.42 I wish the divergence between us only
affected these large issues and did not so constantly
42 Ibid. 114.
2QO CORRESPONDENCE WITH GILBERT RYLE

extend to details which might pass for obiter dicta.
When you say that 'there is no logical contradiction in asserting that someone is a bad logician', it
makes me at once wonder whether or not you have
considered the very obvious reasons for saying the
opposite, and what your reply would be. So I will
state them roughly and briefly.
By 'logician' I mean, I think, (i) a person who
knows or understands logic, someone proficient in
logical studies. In this sense there is an obvious
contradiction in calling a man a bad logician,which
should I suppose mean someone not proficient
in them. (2) a person who tries to understand logic,
an aspirant to proficiency in logical studies. In
this (27) sense again there is a contradiction, for a
bad logician would now mean a trier who did
not succeed in trying. (3) a person, perhaps both
incompetent and uninterested in logic, who made
a living by teaching it (which involves producing
on pupils and examiners a false impression of
competence).43 Once more, a person who really did
this would not do it badly, and therefore the
phrase bad logician would again be a contradiction.
I assume, you observe, that in the phrase 'a bad
logician' the word bad implies that he is bad qua
logician. If it merely means a logician who e.g. beats
his wife, I withdraw the charge of self-contradiction.
But in the sense of bad which I assume you mean,
calling a man a bad logician appears to me to
43tI should have written, 'a perhaps false impression'.

combine saying that he is a logician with saying
that he is no logician.
Suppose you were to reply: 'Calling a man a bad
logician is a brachylogy for saying that he is a logician in sense (2) or (3) but not a logician in sense
(i).' I should then say: granting this, it onlyfollows
that you have evaded admitting a contradiction
at the cost of admitting an equivocation; and isn't
an equivocation a contradiction? If in a given sentence I use a certain word once only but mean it to
be taken in two quite different and incompatible
senses, what am I doing if I am not contradicting
myself?
You will perhaps think I am amusing myself
with a quibble. If I am, I am also deluding myself
into thinking that the quibble reveals a logical or
metaphysical problem of whose existence you do
not seem to be aware.
55-44 No, I think they are throughout vitiated
by systematic petitio principii. Whether your view
on the question which you beg is a subjective
idealist view, is a further question, which I need
not raise until we are clear about the other. (28)
I conclude with an attempt, which I recognize as
a perilous one, to sum up. It seems probable, to me,
that the fundamental point at issue between us is
44 Ryle, ibid. 114. In his final paragraph, Ryle had
made the provocative comment: 'I hope Mr Collingwood
will not find that my criticisms are vitiated by "subjective
idealism".'

concerned with the way in which we answer the
question 'what is a universal?' (I use that word as
possibly affording a neutral ground between our
vocabularies.) It looks to me as if, in your logic, this
question was answered by saying 'a universal is a
class'; i.e. that whenever we make a statement
(assent to a proposition) about 'all x' we are really
making n statements about the n instances of x
which exist. The theory of universals is thus, so to
speak resolved into the theory of classes. It seems
to me that this analysis applies not only, as at first
sight one might suppose, to enumerative or 'every'
propositions about classes of 'matters of fact',
but also (following Russell) to 'any-'propositions
concerned with 'relations between ideas': the general
doctrine being that any account of a 'universal' can
be analysed without residue into an account of
'class'. This would represent a line of thought
more or less identical with logical nominalism.
In my own view, this line of thought is so far
from satisfactory that it inverts the necessary order
of analysis and is thus a case of obscurum per
obscurius. I am disposed to think that what makes
a number of things instances of a class is their
common possession of some common nature, and
that this common nature (theso-called 'universal')
is thus the ratio essendi of the class as such. Instead
of resolving the theory of universals into the theory
of classes, I should therefore be inclined to take the
opposite line, of resolving the theory of classes into
the theory of universals. This of course is akin to
logical realism.

This difference would tend to produce the
result that when you speak of some kind of thing
as existing, you would analyse your statement
into something like this: 'the class of x's, viz. x1 x2
x3 . . . exist'; whereas I, using the same language,
would have to analyse it somehow (29) more like
this: 'the universal x-ness exists and is instanced
in various x's, xl x2 x3 . . .'
And this would produce a further difference,
that whereas for you it is meaningless to talk of
x-ness as existing unless you are prepared to enumerate the x-s that exist (for the latter is according
to you, I fancy, the only possible meaning of the
former) for me it is possible to talk of x-ness as
existing without claiming any ability to make that
enumeration: the existence of x-ness being for me
sufficiently guaranteed by the existence of even a
single x irrespectively of what others exist.
So the question which most fundamentally seems
to divide us appears to me to be the question: Is a
universal simply a class, or is it that which makes the
class a class?--where you take the first alternative
and I the second.
Apart from this, the division between us seems
to be mainly on a question of method. You criticise
by assuming the truth of your own alternative and
reading that into the thesis criticised; I regard that
as a question-begging method, and try to criticise
by accepting for argument's sake the thesis criticised and then asking myself whether it contradicts
(not me, but) itself. I don't offer any such criticism
of your logical theory, because you have refrained

from stating it; I have only conjectured, from your
treatment of me, what it perhaps is, and I may be
quite wrong. But it has been very interesting to
attempt the conjecture, and whether I have been
right or wrong I hope you will give me credit for
having attended carefully to what you have written
and for not shirking any of your essential points in
my reply.
Yours sincerely
R. G. Collingwood

(30)
21/5/35
Dear Collingwood,
Thank you again very much for your long discussion of my 'Mind' paper. My comments don't deal
with quite everything that you touch on. And they
harp on what I regard as the central question
whether Essence can involve Existence. I wish your
rejoinder had said more about this.
I harp on this because I have the feeling that this
point is one on which--mostly unconsciously-contemporary philosophers get split into mutually
uncomprehending 'schools of thought'--which
I regard as a great pity. The gulf shows itself in the
practice even more then in the theory of different
philosophers. Some talk as if there are philosophers' existence-propositions, others talk(rightly
in my view) as if there aren't. So they seem to each
other to be barking up quite different trees. For the
one set deem themselves to be discussing the nature
of something, which, I suppose, is the object of
their philosophic thought; so they can't help supposing that the other set (who do not recognise
the existence of this something and consequently
can't discuss its nature) are not philosophising at all,
or else not properly.
As my view is that existence-propositions
are not philosophically establishable and should
therefore not occur in philosophy, I have to give a

different sort of account of what constitutes the
object (in the sense of subject matter) of philosophic thought and an account which is overtly
non-metaphysical.
Yours sincerely
G. Ryle
Christchurch
(31) I return your letter (though not, please for
'keeps') in order to be able to refer to it by page
and sentence.
i. p. 2. About my classification of you as an
Idealist. I don't set much store by 'Isms', I do not
regard 'Idealist' say or 'Russellian' or 'Realist' as
denoting a person who swears by a specific proposition or set of propositions. But I do think that the
labels, though vagueish, do give a handy indication
of the general type of interest, approach and affiliations of different philosophers Gust as 'Liberal'
and 'Conservative' do in politics). And I think if
you asked any ordinary reasonably well read
philosopher in, say, Edinburgh, whether he would
classify you with the Cambridgey Oxford tutors,
or with the Cook Wilson-Prichardish ones, or with
the 'Idealists', he would plump for the last. No
one--myself included--likes to feel that he has a
classifiable philosophic cast of mind; but it obviously
is so, save in the case of the unimportant folk who
sit on the fence all the time. I said 'presumably'

because there is no hard and fast criterion of the
presence or absence of these vague philosophic 'casts
of mind'. If I had not said 'presumably', I would
have been suggesting that you called yourself an
Idealist, which, in the book in question, you don't.
My motive in referring to you as an Idealist was
to give an indication to people who haven't met you
or read your books that you are (a) not of the
Russell-Moore-Broad cast of mind, and (b) not
of the Cook Wilson, Prichard, Laird etc. cast of
mind (c) but rather of the Kant-Hegel-BradleyJoachim-Croce cast of mind. And my word
'presumably' signifies and was meant to do so, that
the diagnosis was tentative and a personal one of
my own. Nor am I persuaded of its inaccuracy.
That it is not more than a superficial way of
describing a philosopher is brought out by the
expression 'for what such labels are worth'.
Seriously wouldn't you,if you were e.g.writing
a testimonial for a young philosopher for a teaching
post say something like this 'His general philosophic trend seems to me, so far as I can judge
from the way he writes and talks, to be positivistic
rather than Platonic'? It doesn't say much, but it
says something which is useful for the purposes of
introductions.
But I must deny the point you urge on p. 3, para, i.
I have not based any of my criticisms on views
about a school of thought or about individuals
other than yourself. My criticisms are all addressed
to you and to what you say in your book. Holding

as I do that these party labels are vague and superficial, I would never dream of arguing against so
nebulous an opponent as a 'school of thought', nor
do I think that there is a word in my article which
would be deemed to be aimed at a party or a trend.
Nor do I, or would I, appeal for support of my
position to this or that school or party. There are
no authorities in philosophy. (Incidentally, I only
referred to individual philosophers like Hume
and Kant and 'Russellian work in logic' on
pp. 142-3 to refute your historical dictum that
the Ontological Argument has never again been
seriously criticized.) Elsewhere when I refer e.g. to
Kant and Hume I do so as a short way of referring
to the well-known arguments given by those
philosophers.
(32) P- 3>para. 2. My objection to the Ontological
Argument is an objection to it whatever is the nature
of that the existence of which it professes to demonstrate. So that there is nothing 'in it', whether we
call that which is 'proved' to exist 'God', or 'the
Absolute' or 'that which we are thinking about when
we are thinking philosophically'. It is the form of
the argument that I am maintaining is invalid. So
I don't mind how much the Ontological Argument
is restated. If on any revision it involves the principle that the Essence of So and So involves that
there exists a so and so (or the so and so), then, I am
maintaining, it contains a fallacy. [I did once
study the Neo-Platonic and Scholastic variants and
sources of the argument--I quite realize that it was

meant for a Metaphysical and not a Theological
argument.]
p. 4. 'Particular matter of fact.' This is partly a
verbal point. I mean--as does Hume--by a particular matter of fact a case of something having a
quality or being in a relation or being in a state or
being of a disposition . . . And this is entirely equivalent to saying that a case of something of a certain
quality (or in a certain state or relation etc.) existing,
is a particular matter of fact. For 'there exists a
red-haired cardinal' and 'someone who is a cardinal
has red hair' are paraphrases of one another.
So 'God exists' or 'mind exists' or 'matter exists'
are on their usage, matters of fact--important
ones, very likely, but not different in logical form
from 'a red-haired cardinal exists'. And as they
are of the same logicalform, they cannot be deduced
from a priori premisses. For by an a priori proposition I mean45 a proposition asserting an implication between (abstract) properties. So an a priori
proposition can't depend for its truth on the matter
of fact that something having those properties
exists--i.e. the latter cannot be inferred from the
former. As this is crucial, I'll ask you to show me
what is the difference of logical form between say,
'Mind exists' or 'Matter exists' and 'Ether exists'
or 'Subconscious motives occur'? I see none.
'Mind exists' seems to me to = 'Some things have
45Ryle had originally written 'we mean' but changed his
mind and replaced it with T mean'.

minds' or 'Some things sometimes think, feel,
will . . .' It is a pretty general matter-of-fact proposition, in no logical respect different from 'Spiral
nebulae exist'.46
However, you say here that you doubt the
exhaustiveness of the disjunction between matters
of fact and 'relations of ideas'. Certainly Hume
was sketchy on the latter; but he was not sketchy
on the former. Nor was Kant. That something has
a certain property (i.e. that there exists something
with that property) can always be denied without
self-contradiction and so is a synthetic proposition.
This is what 'synthetic' means. And the only way
of demonstrating a synthetic proposition is by
the use of premisses of which at least one must
also be synthetic. ('Jones is a husband' can be
deduced from 'x is a wife implies that someone else
is a husband of x and Sarah is the wife of Jones'.)
Without any a posteriori premisses no existence
propositions can be demonstrated; or matters of fact
cannot be the implicates of a priori propositions.
Even if there were (as Kant, I think wrongly,
holds) synthetic and a priori propositions you
couldn't deduce affirmative existential propositions
either from them or from them in conjunction with
other a prioripropositions. For synthetic a prioripropositions, if they exist, must be general (universal)
propositions of the form 'anything that is x is y'
(where 'being x' does not logically entail 'being y').
46 This paragraph was originallyan addition on the reverse
of the facing page.

What I don't see, then, is, what other sort of
propositions you are going to find which (a) do not
assert that something (or somethings) has (or have)
such and such properties, and (b) do not assert that
the having such and such a property would imply
having such and such another and (c) will, together
with propositions of the class (b) imply a proposition
of the class (a).
(33) P- 4 (back)47 I distinguish 'all the . . .'
propositions from 'any . . . propositions'. 'All the
men in the room are Etonians = A is an Etonian
and is in the room, B is an Etonian and is in the
room and no one else is in the room.' So it is a conjunction of matter of fact propositions together
with a negative proposition. It would not be true
unless there were some people in the room. Any'
propositions like 'What is coloured is extended' are
not conjunctions of matter of fact propositions and
would be true in a world of unbroken night, where
nothing coloured existed (i.e. where nothing was
coloured).
p. 5. My excursus on singular versus general
hypotheticals was partly intended to make clear
two different senses of hyphothetical which are
commonly confused. If I was mistaken in thinking
that you were saying of hypotheticals what is only
true of general hypotheticals I apologize. But I am
not quite satisfied. For what you say (pp. 5-6)
about philosophical propositions being 'about
47The reference is to what is now n. 11 above.

thought or matter' although not stating or entailing
particular matters of fact gives me qualms. The
form of words 'such and such a proposition is
about so and so' is the source of lots of mistakes.
Russell e.g. (after Meinong) held, before he cleared
up the question with his Theory of Descriptions,
that as 'Centaurs do not exist' is both true and
about Centaurs, there must be Centaurs (in some
sense of 'be' other than 'exist'). Else how could the
proposition be about them? But the answer--or
the relevant part of it--is that 'such and such
a proposition is about so and so' can mean either
(1) the grammatical subject of the verb in the
sentence is the noun or noun-phrase 'so and so' or
(2) the proposition contains the name or designation of so and so and describes it as having such
and such an attribute.
Now 'Centaurs do not exist' is about Centaurs
only in sense (i). And it is saying nothing more
than 'nothing is Centaurish' (i.e. nothing has properties a, b, and c, which, if anything had them
would constitute it a Centaur). Loosely, the proposition is (in sense (2)) about Centaurishness and
not Centaurs.
Philosophical propositions may be in sense
(i) about the ideal State or a perfectly altruistic
Chinaman. For they will only be saying 'if anything
had such and such properties, then . . .'
And some philosophical propositions may be
about mind or about matter in just this way. Berkeley,
for instance, gives propositions about matter when

he says that there couldn't be any such thing.
A materialist might utter similar sceptical propositions about mind in sense (i) of 'about'.
But you, I gather, want some philosophical
propositions to be about mind or matter in something near to sense (2) of about--such that these
propositions to be true or false imply that something is minded or is material (i.e. that there is a
mind or there exist minds and that there exist
material objects). But if--as I don't doubt--there
exist minds and material objects, that there are such
things is an ordinary case of a matter of fact, different in no logicalrespect from 'there are ostriches'
or 'there used to exist dodos'.
(34) P- 6. I used to fancy that I was one of the few
people who was really clear about 'entertaining'!
I certainly don't use it as involving any degree of
belief.
It can't be a general fact that the protasis of an
hypothetical (singular or general) expresses the
assumption that something exists or will exist. For
some protases express the assumption that something does not, or did not or will not exist. 'If Caesar
had not been born . . .' 'If there are no material
objects.' In others (as in my cases about Hitler
or Mussolini) the assumption is not of something
existing, but of something known to exist having
or not having a certain attribute. And, though
I'm not clear whether the question matters much,
there seems to me a big difference between the
protases of hypothetical propositions of the form

'If anyone . . ., then . . .' and propositions expressing the assumption that there exists or will exist
something of a certain sort. For after entertaining
an existence-proposition (affirmative) one could
always give some answer to the question 'How many
so and sos were you supposing to exist?'--and we
could answer 'Oh, only one' or 'two' or 'twenty'.
But if I say 'Anyone found trespassing will be
prosecuted', I can't allow the question to be asked
'How many persons were you imagining as trespassers?' For I wasn't entertaining the idea either of
one or of two or of twenty-five persons trespassing.
Certainly, if I trespass, an 'anyone' proposition
will apply to me. But it wasn't about me. For if
I and several friends trespass together, the 'anyone'
proposition will apply to each of us.
p. 7. Yes, it is clear that I didn't understand you.
And I don't.
You say you repudiate the notion that all
universal judgements are hypothetical (in the sense
of general hypothetical, I'm taking it). I think you
are repudiating a brute fact.
I don't care a rap whether propositions of this
or that form are historians' propositions or chemists'
or poets' or philosophers'. I'm interested in the
logical forms of propositions and not in the contents or subject matters which are parcelled out
between research departments. You say that some
propositions are both universal and categorical.
By 'universal' (when characterizing a proposition)
I supposed and suppose that you were indicating

a formal property of propositions; similarly by
'categorical' I supposed and suppose that you
were indicating a formal property of propositions.
Whether historians' propositions have this or that
form, biologists' that or this, and philosophers' that
or the other are, doubtless important questions
about history, biology and philosophy. But so far
from these references as to the favourite fields of
propositions of given forms throwing light on these
differences of form, I want to be clear about the
latter before I can be clear about the differences of
type which are asserted to obtain between several
enquiries.
I'm sorry if my use of such expressions as 'You
must mean so and so' rings very dogmatic. All I can
say is that I would be justified in using (35) 'must',
if I could show that you would be propounding
overt contradictions otherwise. And this, of course,
should be proved and not merely alleged.
To clarify
the issue I'll lay down
some
propositions.
1. A red-haired cardinal exists' is a verbal paraphrase of 'someone is red-haired and a cardinal'.
If either is true the other is true. And so is 'There
is a cardinal who is red-haired' or 'There is a
red-haired cardinal', (i.e. particular propositions
and existence propositions are the same thing).
2. 'That man yonder is a red-haired cardinal' entails
(but is not quite equivalent to) 'a red-haired
cardinal exists' or 'someone is both red-haired

and a cardinal', (i.e. singular propositions entail
particular propositions but not vice versa).
3. By a particular matter of fact I mean and think
that Hume meant any fact stated by propositions of the above two sorts. So that all affirmative existence propositions are cases of matter
of fact propositions.
4. By a categorical proposition I mean a proposition of either of the above two sorts (plus,
of course, combinations of such propositions
such as 'Smith has just come and Jones has just
departed'). Of course there can be negative
categoricals, or negative matter of fact propositions. (Enumeratives are just compounds of
singular or particular propositions.)
5. By an universal proposition I mean one which
is not (and is not a compound of) of the form
'This is . . .' or 'This is not . . .', or 'Something
is . . .' or 'Something that is ... is not . . .' or
'There is a . . .'. Nor yet is an universal proposition a compound of such singular or particular
propositions.
Instead, an universal proposition is one of
the form 'Whatever is, . . . is, . . .' or 'Any x is y'
or 'If something is x, it is y' or 'Nothing is both
x and y' or 'Being x involves being y'.
6. 'No universal propositions are categorical' is,
therefore, as I use these terms, a pure verbal
tautology.

7. This is also the customary use of 'universal'
(in 'universal proposition'). There is not an
uniform custom about the use of 'categorical'
and I should prefer to drop the word and say
instead just 'singular or particular'.
So to say 'No universal proposition is a
singular or particular proposition' is a verbal
proposition as these adjectives are customarily
used and used by me. So is 'no universal propositions are or contain affirmative
existential
propositions').
8. You use the term 'universal' in this sense while
you are speaking of the universal judgements of
geometry or science.
9. If the 'universal propositions of philosophy' are
different in form from universal propositions of
science and from singular or particular propositions, then either they cannot assert or entail
that there exists so and so or you distinguish
between the form of existence propositions and
the form of particular propositions, i.e. you
reject proposition i.
But then I can't reconcile what you yourself say
about 'categorical' propositions with what you now
say--'Some universal propositions are categorical.'
(36) p. 9- By cavilling I don't mean making
invalid objections, but making objections to points
which are not or may not be cardinal ones. I mentioned these cavils as a way of putting in a caveat.

Because 'object' is used sometimes as a synonym of
'entity' or 'existent' and sometimes as a synonym
of 'what is denoted by a denotative term', people
often slide from saying that a given proposition is
about such and such an object (say an Ideal State)
to saying that this object has such and such properties, i.e. there exists such a thing. And this is
facilitated by the third use of 'object' when it =
object of thought, or object of memory or object of
imagination or desire. It does not at all follow
that because an act has an object in this sense, that
there is an object in the first sense--but it is often
mistakenly supposed to follow. So my caveat was
against any temptation to make any such inferences
from the phrase 'idea of an object' or 'the object
of philosophic thought'.
20. 'Man' is not a septuagenarian or bicyclist;
it is that in respect of which Jones is a man and
Fido is not a man. Being capable of reason is part
of the essence of Man or being a man in the sense
that whatever is incapable of reason is not a man,
i.e. we can't say of any general character that it
is an Essence but only of one character that it is
essential to or part of the essence of another.
30 I'm sorry, but there is no contradiction.
There is a vague phrase 'there is a sense in which
any character whatsoever involves existence'. But
as the next sentence makes and expresses its
intention to make precise what this sense is, all is
well. If you prefer it, I'll say 'having a character
involves existence'. But that is mutatis mutandis

what I said--e.g. when I said 'Being a Prime
Minister involves existence; for if a man is Prime
Minister he exists'. To say that the possessor of a
character exists is to say less than (tho' in a loose
sense part of) what we say when we say that it
possesses that character. Your addition 'the possession of any character whatsoever by an actually
existing thing involves existence' adds nothing.
'Actually' adds nothing to 'existing' and 'existing'
adds nothing to 'thing'--unless you think that
existing is a character or predicate, which in your
book you are prepared to deny or leave in question.
It is, of course, what my whole paper denies.
The only sense--and it is a very trivial one--in
which e.g. infallibility involves existence is just
this, that if some one is infallible, an infallible
person exists. The apodosis is just a paraphrase of
the protasis.48 To say that a character characterizes
something is to say that there exists something
with that character. That is all.
In other words, it is all one whether we state
particular propositions in the form 'There exists
a so and so' or 'something is such and such'.
Predicating a character of something and asserting
the existence of a thus characterized something
are two expressions for the same thing. And I hold
that the Ontological argument seems plausibleonly
so long as this is not noticed.
48 Ryle had written 'apodosis'; this was presumably a slip
and has been changed to 'protasis' as that is what he clearly
intended.

[No, I've not bothered my head with queer senses
of 'exist'--only with the ordinary sense. Indeed
I doubt if there are several senses of it.]
(37) PP- II-I3- I'm sorry I didn't spot that
you were attacking a special Bradleyan theory. But
I don't reproach myself much. For you set out to
show that logicians' propositions are not hypothetical and not that they are not both hypothetical and
sceptical about inference.
I perfectly agree that 'proofs' of the invalidityof
all 'proofs' are not proofs--(nor, of course, would
'proofs' of the validity of proof prove anything).
But I'm puzzled how this bears on the question
whether or not logicians' propositions are hypothetical. I'll concede (without complete belief)
that when logicians do logic their procedure is
ratiocinative, so that they talk about, say, the implications between such and such premisses and
conclusions in premisses plus the conclusions
which they imply. (In fact, I think, a lot of logic
is not ratiocinative but consists in Comparison,
Abstraction and Classification--and in the framing
of more or less elegant symbolism for the forms
which they isolate--but we'll let that pass).
But, as I see it, the logician's propositions (his
premisses and/or/cum their conclusions) in order
not to be merely hypothetical in form must be or
contain singular or particular references, such as
proper names, or designations or descriptions, like
'This . . .' or 'The . . .' or 'Something'. But this
is not provided by the fact that their propositions
exemplify the forms that they are about.

I'll concede, for the argument's sake the hypothetical proposition 'if anyone studies logic in the
right way, he will argue validly and will therefore
be producing an instance of that the form or forms
of which he is investigating.' But that the protasis
applies to this or that person is a matter of fact
which does not follow from the general hypothetical
proposition about the method of the logician.
Even, i.e., if it was part of the essence of the
enquiry, called Logic, that if anyone takes part
in that enquiry,he must be exemplifying the implications which he is exploring in the procedure of
his enquiry, what is entailed by the nature of the
enquiry and its subject matter is not the fact that
someone does so proceed but only the hypothetical
truth that unless someone does so proceed he won't
be doing Logic properly.
The rider ' . . . and I (or John Stuart Mill) am so
proceeding' is a question of historical fact, the
negation of which carries no consequences about
the nature of implication or of the proper procedure
of Logic.
So I'll grant (again for the sake of the argument)
that the enquiry called logic can't be done properly
save in arguments which exemplify the forms of
implication to be studied--and still I say that this is
no case of Essence involving Existence--it is only
a case of a big hypothetical proposition implying
a smaller hypothetical proposition. We are saying
'the Essence of Implication involves that any
logical enquiry into it would have such and such a
character' which is exactly parallel to the Essence

of triangularity involves that the internal angles of
a triangle are equal to two right angles.
pp. 13-15. I have no objection to the policy of
only giving explicit mention honoris causa to individuals. I have explained above how I failed to see
that you were both arguing against a particular
fallacious theory and arguing for the general
theory that logicians' propositions can't be merely
hypothetical.
(38) p. 16. (b) is my view; not (a). And I think
it very likely that a proposition p1 may be of a
given form and
involve other propositions p2 n
which are of some or all possible different forms.
And when a set of propositions do interlock, the
fabric of them (which is a complicated compound
proposition) will in some respects be formally
different from each of its members. But this does
not modify the fact that p1 is formally different
from p2, p3, . . . ,pn.
[p. 17. 'Logical atomism'. I've never been able
to find out what this 'ism' is. So I don't know if
I hold it! I thought it was something which Joseph
is fond of attacking--namely a metaphysical view
of a monadistic pattern, save that the monads in
it are 'bare particulars' or 'absolute simples'. But
I've never found either the Bible or the prophets
of this creed. Perhaps Russell in his article
'Logical Atomism' in the 'Monist'--but I've not
seen it. Anyhow if that is what logical atomism is,
I don't hold it.

But I'm not sure if this is what you are ascribing to me. I certainly distinguish a compound from
a less compound proposition; and compound
propositions containing implications from those
which only contain 'ands'. I don't believe that
thinking occurs, could occur or should occur in
'hiccoughs'.]
p. 22. I jump to p. 22. I don't identify a proposition with the sentence which expresses it. But I do
think that a proposition can only be said to occur
or exist when someone is actually entertaining or
propounding it, or, (when it has been propounded)
during the occurrence of any one's entertaining it
again or in a looser sense during the survival of the
printed sentences, if they are printed.
There is another view, which I ought to have
mentioned (one which I think I refuted in an
Aristotelian Society paper once) that there exist or
rather subsist numerous types of timeless entities
among which are 'objective truths'; and 'objective
falsehoods'. But I don't think that it makes sense
to say'the truth that 7 + 5 = 12 exists or subsists'.
Nor do I or did I think that you held this view.
If you do or did, you would not then need to argue
that the procedure of logicians involves their 'producing' propositions exemplifying their theories
or theorems. For it wouldn't matter if they were
produced or not. On this hypothesis they would be
'there' anyhow. Your alternative (c) won't do. For
what is required is not deduction of doctrines
3H CORRESPONDENCE WITH GILBERT RYLE

(whatever that may mean) but deduction of the
existence of the doctrines of ... i.e. deduction of
the fact that Mill and Russell taught or teach or
came to hold such and such doctrines. And a doctrine exists or occurs when and only when the
holder of it is arriving at it or considering it after
he has arrived at it or propounding it: i.e. what is
required is not the deduction of the truth of a
doctrine but of its existence. When I say 'required'
I mean, of course, if the argument is to be from
Essence to Existence.49
And anyhow the 'subsistence' hypothesis argues
to the subsistence of propositions not from the
special nature of logical enquiry but from such
facts as that two people can entertain the same
proposition at different dates.
p. 24. I distinguish, as I said earlier Any . . .'
propositions from All the . . .' propositions. The
latter are enumeratives and are only compounds of
singular or particular propositions. And I did not
suppose that you were equating the two kinds
as some bad inductive logicians have done. But
when you speak of All . . . propositions implying
the existence of such and such propositions we
are bound to recognize, I think,
(a) that 'there exists a . . . ' propositions are particular propositions of the same form as 'Something
that is x, is y'.
49 The final part of this paragraph (from 'p. 2 Your
alternative won't do . . . ') was originally an addition on the
reverse of the page.

(b) that 'any . . . ' propositions do not contain or
imply particular propositions; so that
(c) your 'all . . . ' propositions (of which I am
perhaps too prejudiced to find any convincing
examples) in order to contain
or imply
existence-propositions have to embody some
non-universal terms. It must be or embody
some
particular propositions, perhaps
in
another way from 'All the . . . ' propositions.
(39) P- 26-7. 'Bad logician.' It is possible to make
mistakes while prosecuting the enquiry called logic.
It is also possible to miss discoveries which others
could make or have made. But that someone does
make such and such mistakes or fell short in such
and such ways is a matter of historical fact. And so
is it a historical fact that there exists a relatively
careful or perspicuous logician. So, though we can
know what a good logician would be, this knowledge can't tell us whether there is one or not, i.e.
Neither from the Essence of, say, Implication, nor
from the Essence of 'good logician' can we infer to
the existence of a good logician.
A good logician would reason validly about valid
reasoning'--granted. But does Mill (or Russell)
reason validly? I can't tell by deduction from the
general hypothetical proposition but, at best, by
finding out what he says and examining it.
All I meant to show was that 'a good logician
would reason validly about valid reasoning' is compatible with 'there are no good logicians' and so
can't imply the existence of one or several or them.
3i6 CORRESPONDENCE WITH GILBERT RYLE

So their existence (if there are some) is not
implied by the essence either of 'Logical Enquiry'
or of 'the subject matter of logic'.
That is, I was simply giving a special application
of what I said explicitly about the Ontological
Argument, namely that propositions of the form
'being X is of the essence of being Y' may be true,
where 'being-X' signifies a character. But 'that there
exists So and So is of the essence of being Y' can
never be true. A proposition about the analysis of
a complex character is always compatible with the
denial that anything has that complex character.
You have a general suspicion of my objections
deriving from a 'petitio principii'. I doubt if this
is so, but the victim of a petitio principii would not
be likely to realize it anyhow.
What is, I think, the premiss from which (I am
urging) the fallaciousness of the Ontological
Argument directly follows is the principle that
propositions of the form 'X exists' or 'Ys exist' are
equivalent in every way (save the grammar of their
expression) to such propositions as 'Something is
Xish, or Something is an X or Something is the X'.
This is what I mean when I say (i) existence is not
a predicate or character; (2) existence-propositions
are formally of one type with ordinary particular
propositions (or 'matter of fact' propositions) like
Someone is Xish or The so and so is Xish.
[The 'Bible' for this view is, on the negative
side, Hume and Kant on 'existence no predicate'. On the positive side Russell's Theory of

Descriptions and its applications to the problem
of Denotation, Existence Propositions etc.]
pp. 28-9. No I don't think that in 'Jones is
happy' the predicate 'happy' names or refers to a
class. Also I don't think that 'Universals exist' or
'Universals don't exist' is true. Neither is significant to me. With these cryptic utterances, I'll say
that a universal is that in respect of which this, that
and the other (if any) are green or square or what
you will.
3i8 CORRESPONDENCE WITH GILBERT RYLE

(40)
Pembroke College, Oxford
6 June 1935
Dear Ryle
Here are some observations on your reply, with
which I return the whole dossier. I have confined
myself to commenting on the points which you lay
down on p. 5,s because I do not think we shall ever
get on to a profitable discussion of the ostensible
issues until we clear up certain logical questions
affecting the kind of arguments by which we think
they can be elucidated. I have therefore raised
two points only. One concerns your identification
of particular propositions with existence propositions. The other concerns your description of the
doctrine that I am denying as a tautology. The
second is the more important. I suspect that it is
connected with your disbelief in synthetic a priori
propositions, which I do not share; and I think we
are probably agreed that the possibility of metaphysics is bound up with the question whether
such propositions are possible.
Yours sincerely
R. G. Collingwood
(41) Before proceeding to discuss your points in
detail, I will make a distinction. Whenever we utter
50 P- 35 in the current pagination.

a word, we do so either (a) to call attention to that
word itself or (b) to call attention to what it 'means'
or 'stands for'. When we utter a word as the logical
subject of a proposition, in case (a) I call the
proposition a verbal proposition, in case (b) a real
proposition. Verbal propositions are of course in
a sense real, but in a peculiar way,the reswith which
they are concerned are verba; whereas in what I call
distinctively real propositions the res are not verba
(or at any rate not the verba in which the propositions are expressed) but the meaning of these words.
e.g. 'Verbal propositions are propositions about
words' is a verbal proposition.
Verbal propositions are not 'trifling' or valueless
propositions, though they naturally appear so to
persons in search of real ones. They may be true or
false. Their peculiarity is that they are propositions
about language; they make no assertions whatever
about the things meant by the language in question.
e.g. 'An isosceles triangle is one having two sides
equal to one another' conveys no information
whatever about isosceles triangles or isoscelestriangularity or the like. It conveys information
about the verbal phrase 'isosceles triangle'.
But when I say 'An isosceles triangle has the
angles at its base equal to one another' I am asserting a real proposition: i.e. I am formulating (for my
own convenience or the instruction of others)
information not about the verbal phrase but about
that which the verbal phrase means.

(42) (i) Here you give one example of a particular existence-proposition and comment 'i.e. particular propositions and existence propositions are
one and the same thing'. This comment is ambiguous, (a) It may be a verbal proposition, meaning
'the terms particular proposition and existence
proposition are synonymous'. In this case it would
neither express nor imply anything about the
character of the thing having those two names, and
would merely state the matter of fact that you
intend to use (or believe people generally to use)
the two names indifferently, (b) It may be a real
proposition meaning 'every proposition which is an
existence-proposition is also a particular proposition and every proposition which is a particular
proposition is also an existence proposition'. In this
case it requires justification, and does not receive
it from the citation of one example in which a
proposition has both characters. In point of fact
I deny it, for the following type of reason.
According to your own statement, propositions
do not have diverse logical forms according as they
are historians' propositions or poets' propositions.
I assume that you would include novelists in the
same list, possibly under the heading of poets, or
possibly under another head. Therefore, if every
particular proposition is an existence proposition:
Caesar wasbald = There was a man who was both
bald and called Caesar
/. Mr Micawber wasoptimistic = Therewasaman
who was both optimistic and called Mr Micawber.

If, as you profess, you are interested only in the
logical form of propositions, I see no way in which
you can avoid this inference, i.e. avoid admitting
that any proposition having Mr Micawber as its
subject entails a proposition asserting Mr Micawber's
existence. This I take to be an absurdity. It might
be evaded (a) by pretending that such a proposition is really universal--a proposition 'about
Micawberishness'--in which case I should reply
that on your own showing Caesar was bald would
then be 'about' (43)Caesarishness and your entire
doctrine of particular propositions and/or existence
propositions disappears; (/3) by re-analysing it into
'there was a man who was both called Dickens and
imagined an optimistic Mr Micawber', in which
case I should reply that, if so, Caesar was bald
becomes 'there was a man who was both called
Suetonius and believed in a bald Caesar'; in both
cases, for analysis of the given proposition there is
being substituted analysis of a different proposition.
This type of case appears to me of crucial
importance and exceedingly common. Works of
fiction seem to me mainly composed of particular
and singular propositions which are not existence
propositions. I do not think they have this character
because they occur in works of fiction, but that there
are works of fiction because propositions may have
this character.51 In passing, I remark (i) that when
5I^ I do not say that the Micawber-type of non-existential
particular or singular p (viz. where the subject is an ens
imaginarium) is the only possible type.

you say 'having a character involves existence' on
p. 652 you are to my mind ignoring this type of case
and repeating the fallacy based on ignoring it, i.e.
on forgetting that Mr Micawber has a character
(of being optimistic) but is not what I wish to
call 'a really existing person'; (ii) that until you
have cleared up this problem I do not think you have
begun to approach the difficulties with which the
ontological argument is concerned.
(2) I have said all I need about this under (i).
I will only repeat that if a novelist wrote 'Monsignor
Monsoche was a red-haired cardinal' this would
not actually entail 'a red-haired cardinal exists or
existed' although on your view it must do so.
(44) (3) When you say 'by a particular matter of
fact I mean any fact stated by a proposition of one
of the above two sorts' you appear to be stating a
verbal proposition about your own use of words.
If so, I have no objection so far as your use of
words is concerned, though I do object to much
that you seem to be implying with regard to the
things your words mean. I have stated part of my
objection above. I also object to your rider 'so that
all affirmative Existence propositions are cases of
matter of fact propositions', because no ground
whatever is offered for it, unless it has been established that only singular and particular propositions can assert existence, and this has not been
established. You simply assume it, and reiterate
52p. 36 in the current pagination.

your assumption; and this assumption is what
I am questioning when I say that there are universal
categoricals.
(4) If you mean what you say ('by a categorical
proposition I mean a proposition of the above two
sorts') you are asserting a verbal proposition
expressed as stating a peculiarity in your own use
of language--but perhaps loosely meant to express
a claim that it is no mere peculiarity. If you mean
it for a real proposition ('there are no categorical
propositions except propositions of the above two
sorts') you are asserting something that calls for
some kind of proof, in view of the fact that it is
exactly the thing I am denying. You cannot deny a
real proposition by asserting a verbal proposition.
(5) Either (a) you mean 'when I speak of a universal proposition I mean a proposition of the
form' . . . (verbal) or (b) 'there are no universal
propositions except of the form' . . . (real).
(6) The chief proposition which you quarrel
with me for denying is now called a 'mere verbal
tautology'. This means that you regard it as a
proposition asserting that two words or phrases are
synonymous, and you emphasize the statement
that this proposition is one about your own use of
the phrases. No light is thrown on the question
whether I (45) am right in distinguishing two
things which I call x and y, by the fact that
when you use the words you use them to mean one
and the same thing. As it stands, your statement
here merely expresses your refusal to discuss my

distinction, coupled with a confession that in your
vocabulary there are no terms in which you could
discuss it; which may carry implications about
your vocabulary but cannot carry any about my
distinction. The best I can do for your statement
is to suppose that you do not mean what you say,
but mean 'it follows from the above that no universal propositions are categorical'. But it does not
follow unless they are established, and established
as real and not verbal propositions; and I have
argued above that they are not.
This is so crucial that I had put it over again in
an alternative way.You are endeavouring to refute
a certain doctrine of mine by pointing out that, by
asserting it, I am implicitly denying a tautology.
Your argument implies that he who denies a tautology is contradicting himself, and that therefore the
doctrine which he maintains is self-contradictory
and therefore untrue.
This argument is sophistical. It is based on confusion between verbal propositions and real propositions. A tautology is a verbal proposition. When
I say 'x and y mean the same', I am discussing
the words x and y, not the things x and y. (And you
evidently accept this doctrine, for you emphasize
it by using the pleonasm 'pure verbal tautology'.)
Further, I am discussing a certain usage of words,
either personal to myself (which is all you explicitly
claim, with emphasis on the restriction) or generally
established.

e.g. when I say ' a cheval is a horse' I am neither
explicitly nor implicitly raising any question as to
what constitutes the distinguishing marks of a horse,
or whether the horse is a domesticated dziggetai or a
special variation, produced by breeding, (46) of the
onager. My proposition asserts no relation between
two things, the thing meant by cheval and the thing
meant by horse; on the contrary, it implies that in
the usage under discussion there are not two things
but only one, and what it asserts is that this one
thing, whatever its nature may be, is called horse
in English and cheval in French. The proposition
belongs not to zoology but lexicography.
If a tautology is asserted, what is asserted is that
two words stand in this relation. If a tautology is
denied, it is denied that they stand in this relation.
If A says to B 'yu
are denying what to me is a
tautology' he may mean 'your vocabulary differs
in this way from mine (which it has a right to do)'
but he cannot possibly mean 'the thought which your
language expresses is confused or self-contradictory
unless he has forgotten the distinction between
verbal and real propositions; for a tautology is a
kind of verbal proposition, and a verbal proposition
is a proposition about words, not about things
which they mean.
(47) Hence, when I find you saying on p. 453
that in repudiating the notion that all universal
propositions are hypothetical I am repudiating a
53p. 44 in the current pagination.

brute fact, and when I find this further explained
on p. 554 by your statement that the proposition 'all
universal propositions are hypothetical' is a tautology, I conclude that the brute fact I am repudiating is a lexicographical fact and not a logical fact:
and a lexicographical fact about your vocabulary
(and perhaps some other people's). But the
facts I am discussing are logical ones; and I can
imagine your method to be justifiable only if you
can maintain that all the propositions which Kant
(e.g.) would call synthetic a priori propositions
are tautologies. Would you in fact maintain this,
I wonder?--e.g. could you show that it is a pure
verbal tautology that any triangle has its internal
angles equal to two right angles?
54 p. 45 in the current pagination.
METHOD AND METAPHYSICS

Taper read before the Jowett Society, 19 June
1935- 'i
Mr President: When you did me the honour of

inviting me to read a paper to this Society, you did
me the further honour of telling me that, in your
opinion, the Society would like to hear how the
ideas on philosophical method which I stated in a
book some time ago could be applied to metaphysical problems. This was a command which
I could not ignore, and was indeed glad to obey;
and in this paper I shall attempt to obey it.
I must therefore make it clear that I shall not this
evening repeat or explain or defend what I said
in that book; I shall, at your desire, assume it
as known and, for the moment, admitted for the
purposes of discussion as a possible startingpoint.
But in using such language I do not mean to
imply that a philosopher can first of all work
out certain rules of method and then go on to
apply them, as a ready-made instrument, to fresh
problems. It is only by working at problems, of
whatever kind, that one can learn the way to
handle them; and when I speak of applying
1 Bodleian Library, Collingwood Papers, Dept. 19.
328
the method to metaphysical problems I would
wish you to understand that these and similar
problems were always already in my mind when
I was writing on philosophical method, and indeed
long before.
(2) The enterprise which goes by the name of
metaphysics may be described as an attempt to
find out what we can about the general nature of
reality: or, if you prefer any of these phrases, the
general nature of the real, or of things, or of the
world, or of what there is. I do not mind which
of these phrases we use. All I wish to insist on is,
that metaphysics does not consist in any number of
investigations concerning the particular nature of
particular kinds of things, unless these are pursued
in connexion with an investigation concerning the
general nature of things.
In order to explain what I mean by the phrase
'general nature', I will state an objection which is
sometimes brought against any investigation thus
defined. Any inquiry into the nature of anything,
it is said, must be an inquiry into the nature of this
or that particular thing or kind of thing; and since
one kind of thing may totally differ from another
in nature, there is not one single common characteristic to be found in all things, and therefore
the phrase 'general nature of things' is a phrase
to which nothing corresponds.
Now, I accept everything in this objection except
the last phrase. If the general nature of reality
or things means a certain group of characteristics

329
common to all things, or to everything real, I agree
that there is no such general nature. I think that
there is in this sense a general nature of men or
(3) of triangles, consisting of the characteristics
possessed in common by all men or all triangles;
there is a limit within which men or triangles can
differ from one another without ceasing to be men
or triangles. But I agree with the objector that
there is no limit to the possible differences between
one kind of thing and another. For example, I am
by no means sure that a patch of blue colour and
the act by which I perceive it have any common
characteristics whatever. One extends over space,
the other does not; one is an act and the other is
not; and so on. I am not even sure that they both
unequivocally possess the character of unity, for
I doubt whether, when we call the act one act and
the colour one colour, we are using the word one
in quite the same sense. Consequently, if we were
to search for the general nature of things by
a process analogous to, or continuous with,
the process by which we search for the general
nature of men and animals, or triangles and plane
rectilinear figures, I think (and so far I agree with
the objector) that we should be wasting our labour
and that the best result of our search would be the
discovery that there is nothing to discover.
I have to show, then, that when I speak of
the general nature of reality I am using the word
general nature in a different sense from that in
which we speak of the general nature of men or
330
triangles. These (4) are what I call class-concepts;
and thus what I have to show, in order to defend
the possibility of metaphysics against the kind of
objection I am considering, is that reality is not a
class-concept.
For the purpose of the present paper, I need not
show that this demonstrandum is true; I need only
show that it follows from, or is contained in, the
argument of my Essay. It is in fact a particular
case of a generalization there stated in the second
chapter: viz. that no philosophical concept is a
class-concept. I have argued in that chapter that
whereas concepts like man and triangle consist of
characteristics common to all men and all triangles
and are for that reason amenable to the ordinary
logical rules of definition, classification and division, philosophical concepts, of which reality is
one, do not consist of common characteristics and
are not amenable to these rules.
The point which I make in that chapter is
purely negative. It is simply a warning against a
certain methodical error in philosophical thought:
the error of which the neatest and clearest example
which I recall is Professor Moore's attempt to
arrive at an understanding of right action in its
general nature by searching for some characteristic
common to all right actions and no others. This
amounts to an explicit assumption that right
is a class-concept. Similarly the objector about
whom I am talking assumes that reality is a
class-concept.

331
As a matter of fact, he has reduced this assumption to absurdity. He may disguise the absurdity by
(5) congratulating himself on having escaped from
the notoriously difficult and dangerous enterprise
of metaphysics, and thanking God, like Dogberry,
that he is rid of a knave; but what he is really
doing when he says that there is no such thing as
the general nature of reality is to say that there
is no such thing as reality, which is to say that
nothing is real, that nothing exists, or that there
is nothing at all.
Rather than acquiesce in this conclusion, which so
far from being an avoidance of metaphysics appears
to me to be a metaphysics of a peculiarly rash and
violent kind, I prefer to work on the alternative
assumption that reality, whatever it may be, is not
a class-concept: the real, or the world, or what
there is, is not a classificatory system. I do not deny
that there are classificatory systems; what I do
deny is that there is nothing else.
When therefore I talk of the general nature of
reality, and of various kinds of real things, I am not
meaning to imply that there is here a genus divided
according to the familiar logical rules into species.
Some logicians would tell me that this is, nonetheless, what my words mean, and that if I do not
mean this I ought not to use these words.2 I should
like to avoid treading on the logicians' toes, if
2 This is presumably a reference to Ryle's remark to which
Collingwood objects on p. 7 of the Correspondence.
332
I can; and there are at least two ways in which
I could do it: namely by speaking, not of kinds, but
of parts or aspects of reality. I will explain why
neither alternative satisfies me.
(6) (i) Many distinguished philosophers have
found it satisfactory to speak of reality as a whole,
having parts, related to each other and to the whole
somewhat as in the case of an organism with its
limbs, or a work of art with its various parts. This
language certainly has its uses; but I think that,
when used of the general nature of reality, it is very
misleading. Properly speaking, the parts of a whole
are separable parts in a divisible whole. When separated they are not exactly what they were when
they occupied their places in the whole, but they
are still something; if they perished altogether on
being separated, they would not be separable, and
therefore not strictly parts; and that which they
composed would not be divisible, and therefore not
strictly a whole. My body is a whole of parts in a
quite natural and appropriate sense; but my mind
is not; and it is still more inappropriate to speak
of my mind and my body as two parts of myself.
Such language would really throw no light on the
peculiar relation of my body to my mind. Hence,
although there are such things as wholes of parts,
just as there are classificatory systems, I cannot
admit that the general nature of reality can be
described in the language of organic wholeness,
any more than it can be described in the language
of classification.

(2) Some philosophers, again, prefer to use,
instead of the phrase kinds of real things, the
phrase aspects of reality. And here again, the language is sometimes appropriate;3 but this terminology too has its defects. (7) One is that the word
aspect seems to convey a reference to a spectator, so
that differences of aspect in a thing might appear
to exist only for the mind of a person thinking
about the thing in different ways; and that,
I believe, would be a false suggestion. More serious
is the fact that the whole terminology, moderately
appropriate though it may be to some kinds of distinction, is violently inappropriate to others. No
one with any sense of shame could call four legs
and a top five aspects of a table or indeed of anything, or two-seaters and four-seaters aspects of
motor-cars. It is hardly less inappropriate to call
poetry and music aspects of art, or an individual
man an aspect of humanity. If so, the relation
between something and its aspects can hardly be an
adequate representation of the general nature of
reality in its relation to the various reals.
333
3 At this point there is a crossed out paragraph reading: 'in

saying that although my body and my mind are not two parts
of me, they are two aspects of me; or that the life of an organism, though it is certainly not something of which nutrition and
reproduction are parts, is something of which nutrition and
reproduction are aspects. Thus, again, when Plato distinguishes
within the soul what he calls the rational, the spirited and the
appetitive, these distincta are certainly not accurately to be
called parts of the soul, and it may seem better to call them
aspects.'
334
(8) I return, then, to my old terminology and talk
about various kinds of real things, together composing what I call reality or the real; finding that
terminology less misleading than any other I can
think of provided it is remembered that these
kinds are not the mutually exclusive species of the
logical text-books.
But if the unity of the real, in relation to the
diversity of the various kinds of real things, is not
the unity of a classificatory system, what kind of
unity is it? Here I am moving on from the negative or destructive doctrine stated in the second
chapter of my book, the doctrine which I call the
overlap of classes, to the positive or constructive
doctrine of the third chapter. Still confining myself
to the question how the views expressed in that
book would afford an approach to metaphysical
problems, I should answer my present question by
saying that I should expect the concept of reality,
like other philosophical concepts, to exhibit the
structure of a scale of forms, where the different
kinds of real things differ both in the kind and in
the degree of reality that they possess; a scale
nowhere going down to zero, so that there is no
such thing as the completely unreal, but one in
which every term is relatively unreal by contrast
with higher terms, except the highest of all, and
I should not expect that we could know, except in
a very dim and imperfect way, what the absolutely
highest term is.

335
These suggestions, brief and vague though they
are, already contain much that calls for explanation. Perhaps I had better first of all try to explain
what could be meant by speaking of degrees of
reality; for the expression may perhaps seem both
meaningless in itself, and inconsistent (9) with the
language I have already used about kinds of real
things, implying as it might seem to do that all
these kinds are real, not in their degree, but
absolutely.
Ordinary thought and ordinary language have
no scruples about admitting degrees of reality.
We should generally call the reflection of our face
in a mirror less real than the face itself. It is a
real reflection, no doubt; but there seems to
be something unreal implied in its being only a
reflection. If we were asked why we call it less
real than the face, we might answer, first, that it
would not be there unless we were looking at it, in
other words it is not a reality but an appearance;
secondly, that it is not something solid or threedimensional like the face itself, but flat, occupying
no space; and thirdly, that it would not be there
unless the face and the mirror, and perhaps we
might add the observer, stood in a certain relation.
Change the relation, and the reflection ceases to
exist: and we think that what is real could hardly
depend for its existence on a transient relation
between other things, or, at least, that this proves
it to be less real than they. These three answers
336
are doubtless not all of equal value. But they seem
to imply certain general principles: (i) that an
appearance, depending for its existence on a spectator, is less real than something not so depending;
(2) that a body must occupy space, so that whatever looks like a body but does not occupy space
is not a real body, but a mere appearance, depending partly on the spectator; (3) that what depends
for its existence upon a relation between other
things is less real than those things themselves.
(10) We seem to be implying that nothing can be
altogether real if it depends on something else
either for existing at all or for being what in
particular it is; and at the same time we are
implying that things which are, because of this
dependence, not altogether real, are not for that
reason altogether unreal.
A similar intermediate status between complete
reality and complete unreality is ascribed by ordinary thought and language to hallucination and
dreams. Macbeth's dagger, we should ordinarily
say, was not really there; not that he was mistaking
something else for a dagger, but that there was
nothing really there at all. Yet we should also say
that the dagger he saw was real in its own way,
a real hallucination, proceeding according to
more or less definite psychological laws from the
heat-oppressed brain. And I think that we should
normally describe it as less real than the dagger
which, while addressing his lines to the imaginary
one, he drew from its sheath.

337
The same principle seems to be at work here.
The imaginary dagger is not altogether real,
because of its dependence: it depends for its existence on Macbeth's excited frame of mind, and for
its character, like a reflection, on the real dagger he
meant to use.
Perhaps I may pause for a moment to forestall a
possible misunderstanding. Did not the real
dagger, I may be asked, depend for its existence
upon the cutler who made it, and for its character
upon the dagger he was asked to copy: and would
not this make it, too, an unreal dagger, on the principle I have stated? I answer, no; because, although
it depended on these things for acquiring its existence and character, once it has acquired them it
continues to possess them independently.
(n) But it is not only appearances that are
defective in reality though not wholly devoid of it.
It may seem odd, but I think it is the case, that
there is a certain unreality about even a so-called
real dagger, though I admit it is far more real than
Macbeth's imaginary one. What I mean is this.
I might stab a man with something intended by its
maker for use as a paper-knife;now, does that make
it a dagger, or is it only a paper-knife used as a
dagger? Conversely, I have a dagger which I bought
in Athens and use as a paper-knife;as thus misused
is it still a dagger, or not? And even if the maker
and user were agreed in their intentions, and I had
bought the thing as a dagger intending to use it as
one, I should still hesitate to answer the question
338
'is it really a dagger?' with the same degree of
affirmative confidence as the question 'is it really a
piece of steel?' I seem to detect in myself a notion
that, since its being a dagger depends on the
intentions of its maker or user or both, there is a
certain degree of unreality about its being a
dagger, which is absent from its being a piece
of steel; it is more really a piece of steel than it is
a dagger, although, these intentions being what
they are, it is as really a dagger as anything can be.
Thus it seems to me that when we talk as we do
about real things or unreal things a closer inspection of what we say and think shows that we regard
reality and unreality as differing in degree. I will
now venture to generalize this and lay down the
principle that when we ordinarily call things real
we actually mean that they are more real than other
things and that when we call things unreal we mean
that (12) they are less real than other things: in
short, that the concept of reality, as we find it
actually present in or to our thought, exhibits
differences of degree.
If I am right about this, it will follow that the
task of metaphysics can never be to say such things
as: matter alone is real, or mind alone is real, or
God alone is real, and all else is unreal, mere
appearance, and mere error, a nothing. Instead, its
task will be to consider what kind and degree of
reality various kinds of real things possess, and
how they are related to other things more and less
real than themselves.

339
I may, I know, be accused of building this
principle on nothing firmer than people's ordinary
talk and ordinary thought, and I may be told
that these things are hopelessly confused. But in
such inquiries as these I do not know where else
to start. I hope that if my starting-point is really
a mass of hopeless confusion, the contradictions
in it will come to light when I try to work out its
implications, which is what I am doing now.
Next, I suppose I ought to ask what I mean by
calling reality a scale of forms. Do I think that it
is one single scale, and if so why; and do I think
that metaphysics can actually exhibit the real as
forming one such scale?
Taking the last question first, I do not think that
metaphysics can do this, or is ever likely to. I think
(13) that our knowledge of reality is far too
fragmentary and one-sided to make success in any
such enterprise possible. In particular, it seems to
me that, as human beings, we can never escape
from the law by which we attend to most closely,
and know best, those things which are most bound
up with our practical interests as living organisms,
with desires mainly concentrated on the maintenance of our own life and that of our species.
In metaphysics, we are trying all the time to get
away from this anthropocentric point of view,
but we can never get away from it entirely. Yet
although all our knowledge is for this reason not
only incomplete but biassed, I believe it to be true
so far as it goes, real knowledge of a sort, although
340
we can conceive (but cannot enjoy) a knowledge
that would be much more real.
If I am asked whether reality is one scale of
forms or many, I answer that in the fragmentary
way in which it is known to us it must necessarily
appear as many, and that do what we will we cannot bridge all the gaps between the fragments.
The most we can do is to consider what seem to be
the chief kinds of things known to us, and try
whether we can think of them as forming a single
scale. If we cannot, there may be at least three
reasons for our failure. Either the real does not
form one single scale; or we know only isolated
fragments of it; or we have failed to see close
(14) connexions that really exist between parts
that we know. Until we can be sure that the third
of these causes is not at work (and I do not see
how we can even be quite sure of that) and can
eliminate the second also (and this would seem to
involve claiming a knowledge which we may be
quite sure is denied us) we are not entitled to
assert the first. Of course we may assume it, and
give up the attempt at a coherent metaphysics;
but we have an equal right to assume the opposite
and continue the attempt.
From this long preface, like a man who has
lingered pleasantly on the shore in his new
bathing-suit, and for very shame must now jump
into the cold water, I turn to give you at my peril
an example of how I should use my method in
metaphysical thinking.

341
First of all, I will distinguish three kinds of
things, which I will call minds, bodies and abstract
entities. By minds I mean what we ordinarily call
by that name. By bodies, again, I mean the kinds
of things that occupy space and move in time. By
abstract entities (I know the phrase is clumsy and
misleading) I mean such things as being, negation,
relation, necessity, possibility: the kinds of things
that some modern philosophers have called categories. When I call them abstract I do not mean
that we in any sense make them by an act
of abstraction; I mean rather that we are thinking
about them when we do what is called thinking
abstractly.
All these kinds of things are real, but real in
very different ways. The
reality of a mind
is, I think, not only exhibited in, but identical with,
its activity: a (15) complex activity of feeling,
thinking, and willing. The reality of a body
consists in its occupying a given place at a given
time. The reality of an abstract entity is far harder
to describe; but I think we all believe in it; we
do say for example that there is such a thing as
relation, or quantity, or necessity. I suppose the
reality of such a thing simply consists in its
being itself.
Between them, when we include in them their
various states and modifications,the ways in which
they exist and the products of their activity, these
three, I venture to think, include pretty well all the
kinds of things we know.
342

You will perhaps want to ask why I have made
abstract entities a kind of things by itself, instead
of including them under the states, modifications,
and so forth of bodies and minds. I answer:
because had I done so I should have been forced
to conclude that our knowledge of them is merely
such knowledge as can come by acquaintance, that
is, empirical knowledge, devoid of universality
and necessity. The abstract entities of which we
have universal or necessary, or a priori, knowledge, are in that knowledge contemplated by us
not merely as instanced here or there in the world
of body or mind, but in themselves; and on the
principle, or if you like the assumption, that we
know things as they (16) are, when I am satisfied
that we know them not merely as instanced in
bodies or minds but in themselves, I say that they
are not merely instanced in bodies or minds but
are in themselves.
These three kinds of things, minds, bodies, and
abstract entities, cannot be arranged in any classificatory system. They are not three species of a
genus, nor two species of which one is divided into
two sub-species, nor anything else of the same
sort. I will not now spend your time elaborating
this point. I will only call your attention to
one matter arising out of it: viz. the fact that the
so-called problem of the relation between body
and mind, of which psychophysical parallelism
and interactionism are attempted solutions, arises
from thinking that minds and bodies form two

species of a single genus substance, and disappears
when it is seen that the relation between them is
not of this kind.4
The things which we ordinarily think and say
about ourselves imply that each one of us, not
only has, but is, both a certain body and a certain
mind. We can distinguish the two things, but
we regard them as together constituting one and
the same thing. When we say, for example, 'I will
come and see you', we do not mean 'my body
will come and my mind will see you'. My body will
come in a way in which a mere body could
not come, and my mind will see you in a way in
which a mere mind could not see. The mind is
thought of as an embodied mind, and the body as
an 'enminded' body.
If we think of bodies and minds as specifically
different kinds of things arranged in a classificatory system, and infer that since these kinds are
mutually exclusive nothing can be both at once, we
find ourselves driven to abandon all these ordinary
ways of thinking, and to face a dilemma. Either
I am my body, to which my mind is attached as a
kind of shadow (the view of Homer in Iliad I 3-4);
or I am my mind, to which my body is attached as
a kind of Siamese twin by its pineal gland or the
like (the view of Descartes); or else I am some
third thing, neither a mind nor a body, which 'has'
343
4 The following two paragraphswere originallyinserted into

the text on the verso of two facing pages under the heading
'Further explanation of point made opposite'.
344
a mind and a body; or else I am a whole made up
of body and mind as two parts, each part entirely
self-contained. For my present purpose it does not
matter which of the four alternatives is adopted. In
any of the four cases, we are trying to conceive a
union of two things into one, when the relation
between the two is of such a kind that the union is
ruled out from the beginning as impossible. We
have set ourselves a nonsense problem by starting
with the doctrine that body and mind are two
things. Two bodies may begin as two things and
become one, as a nib and a holder may become a
pen, because they have, in their common nature as
bodies a common ground on which to meet; two
minds may begin as two things and become one, as
two businessmen may join forces and become one
business firm; but there is no way in which a body
and a mind can be conceived as uniting into one
thing if we begin by conceiving them as two.
The interactionist theory represents itself as the
common-sense solution of the problem, but
common sense cannot solve a nonsense problem. In
order to solve the problem we must first restate it,
insisting that the fundamental fact is neither my
mind nor my body but myself, and that I am at once
both mind and body. The question then is not what
relation there can be between two such different
things as my body and my mind, but how one thing
namely myself can be both a body and a mind.
What we want to know is whether these three
kinds of things [minds, bodies, and abstract entities]

345
constitute a scale of forms. One characteristic of
such a scale is the combination in it of differences
of degree with differences of kind. A second is the
combination of distinction and opposition. A third
is that each term in the scale sums up in itself the
whole scale to that point. I shall consider these three
characteristics in the reverse order.
(i) If our three kinds of things constituted a scale
of forms, one of them would contain in itself
nothing but (17) itself, the second would contain the
first, and the third would contain the first and
second. Now, it seems to me that the world of
abstract entities, as we are conversant with it in our
abstract thinking, neither contains nor implies either
bodies or minds. The timeless and placeless being
of the entities which compose it does not demand
either that they should be instanced in bodies
or minds, or that they should be apprehended
by minds.
The world of bodies, on the contrary, not only
presupposes the world of abstract entities in order
that it should exist, but the bodies composing it are
actually instances of the absolute entities. Thus the
world of bodies not only isa world of bodies, it isalso
a world of abstract entities instanced in those bodies.
The world of minds is a world of things each of
which has a body, and therefore it is not a mere
mind-world but a body-mind world. Also, it is a
world in which minds as feeling, thinking and
acting are intimately related not only to their own
bodies but to the bodies by which they are
346
surrounded; so that the world of bodies, as awhole,
enters as a necessary factor or contributor into
the life of mind. In both these ways the world of
minds is a world of bodies serving to mind the
necessary function of (18) vehicles, objects, and so
forth. Moreover, the abstract entities also enter
into the life of mind, in three ways: (i) Each mind
is an instance of the abstract entities, (2) these
entities are in themselves necessary objects of
mind's thought, and (3) these entities, as instanced
in bodies, are a necessary factor in the body-world
which is in the two ways I have described a
necessary factor in the mind-world.
Thus the three kinds of things, abstract entities,
bodies, minds, form a series having one at least of
the three characteristics of a scale of forms: and
I go on to the second, namely the combination of
distinction and opposition.
(2) Abstract entities and bodies are distinct kinds
of things each with a specific nature of its own. But
when we try to describe these natures we find that
in a sense each is the opposite of the other, and by
opposite I mean not contrary but contradictory. It
is no mere accident about abstract entities, it is
essential to their nature, that in themselves they
should be completely divorced from all connexion
with space and time; ubiquitous in the sense of
being nowhere in particular and eternal in the sense
of being at no particular time. It is equally essential to the nature of bodies that each one of them
should be at one place at one time. There are other

347
contrasts which I could mention, but this is perhaps
enough to illustrate my point. (19) Bodies and
minds, again, are not only different but in certain
ways opposite kinds of things. They agree to differ
from abstract entities in that they are both liable to
change; indeed, more than merely liable to it, they
are bound to it by their very nature. But the ways
in which they change are not only different but
contradictory. The kinds of change to which they
are subject, and the causes of change, are opposite.
The kind of change to which a body is subject is in
the last resort, I suppose, always a displacement or
movement. All other kinds of change in bodies,
such as change of bulk, change of shape, change of
quality, are capable of
being analysed
into
movements of themselves or their parts. The kind
of change to which a mind is subject is never
displacement, nor
is it ever analysable into
displacements. It is always a qualitative change of
a unique kind, whose very essence depends on the
fundamental fact that minds as such do not and
cannot move, although their bodies do. The cause
of change in a body is always something outside it,
whether we call this in the language of older physicists a force acting upon it, or according to more
modern theories the peculiarities of the space in
which it finds itself. The cause of change in a mind
is always something within itself, its own activity,
changing of itself as it goes on. When we say that
a body changes, the verb is a passive verb: the body
is (20) changed by something else. When we say
348
that a mind changes, the verb is a middle verb: the
mind changes itself. And the difference between
being changed by something else and being
changed by oneself is not only a difference, but an
opposition, a contradictory opposition.
(3) The third characteristic of a scale of forms is
the combination of different kinds with different
degrees. Abstract entities, bodies and minds are all
real, and all different; and the kind of reality which
they have is different. The reality of an abstract
entity consists in its abstract, spaceless, timeless, selfidentity. The reality of a body consists in its being
somewhere at some time, and its liability to undergo
change into another place at another time. The
reality of a mind consists in its activity as feeling,
willing and knowing. I have to ask whether all three
are equally real. In order to answer this question it
is of no use to ask, as we asked about a face and its
reflection or Macbeth's dagger of the mind and
the real dagger, how we should answer it in our less
reflective moments; for in our
less reflective
moments we should not ask it at all. What we must
do is to apply to this fresh case the principle which
we found at work in the more familiar ones.
(21) This principlewas that the more real isthe more
self-dependent. Now, if we take any abstract entity
by itself, I think we may say that although it is what
it is entirely in itself, it is what it is only in relation
to, and because of its relation to, other abstract entities. These abstract entities are mutually connected
by what I will call logical relations, and these logical
relations are not only necessary to their terms in the

349
sense that they arise necessarily out of the nature of
these terms, they are necessary to them in the further
and complementary sense of being indispensable to
that nature. For example, the logical relation
between necessity and possibility does not merely
result from the nature of those two things, but each
thing is what it is only in and because of its relation
to the other. Taking any abstract entity by
itself, therefore, we find in it an extreme lack of selfdependence; and the realitywhich it possesses is thus
at an extremely low level. If we try to think of the
world of abstract entities together as a whole, which
is difficult to do in anything but a very vague way
because it is impossible, I think, to enumerate them
with any approach to completeness, we do get the
idea of something self-dependent; but this again is
only partially real; because in themselves these
entities exist only in one way, an abstract way, and
they seem to achieve (22) a completer existence when
they go on to be instanced in the world of bodies.
Thus the world of abstract entities appears to
require the existence of a world of bodies in order
that it may itself exist in such a way as to realise all
its potentialities. Abstract entities singly are not even
what they are; together, they are what they are, but
are not all that they might be; in order that they
should be all they might be, they need something
other than themselves, namely a world of bodies in
which they are instanced.
The world of bodies, again, is real; and each body
in it singly is real. But although each body is what
it is in itself, standing to other bodies in external
3so
METHOD ANDMETAPHYSICS
relations quite different from the internal relations
that pervade the world of abstract entities, it
realises its potentialities of movement or change
only in and because of these relations: and consequently each body needs other bodies in order
that it should be all that it might be. The world of
bodies as a whole is no doubt all that, simply as
body, it has it in it to be; and it contains in itself the
world of abstract entities in the shape of universals
of which it everywhere and at every time provides
instances. Thus I think it may be said that,
although the world of abstract entities and the
world of bodies are both real, the (23) world of
bodies is more real than the world of abstract
entities, and there is some justification for feeling,
as I think that most of us do feel, whatever we are
told to the contrary, that the world of abstract
entities is only a ghost-world--unearthly ballet of
bloodless categories--a shadow world as compared
with what by contrast we call the real world, the
world of solid bodies situated and moving in space.
But if we ask whether the world of bodies is as real
as anything we can conceive, or whether it too has
some defect of reality, it is relevant to remind
ourselves that all the changes that take place in the
world of bodies are of a peculiar kind. These changes
are movements; any movement is the leaving of one
place in order to occupy another; and hence any
change undergone by the world of bodies involves its
acquiring some new distribution or arrangement of
its parts at the cost of losing the arrangement which

351
existed at the beginning of the change. In becoming
what at any given moment it is, the world of bodies
ceases to be what previously it was. Each one of its
states is cut off from every other by a gulf of time
that nothing can cross without perishing. At any
given moment (24) the world of body is what it is
and nothing more; but it is what it is because it was
what it was, so that its present state depends upon a
past state which no longer exists in it. Any given state
or distribution of the bodily world as a whole thus
depends upon something which is not itself; so far
from being self-dependent it is determined by something not now existing at all, namely its own dead
past. In this way the various successive states of the
bodily world, though certainly real, have a peculiar
and, we must say, defective kind of reality. And we
cannot overcome this defect by taking all these states
together; separated as they are by time, and mutually
contradictory, if we try to take them together, all we
can grasp is the unchanging laws of their changes,
and that leads us back again to the world of abstract
entities.
The world of minds is a world in which this defect
is in principle overcome. I say in principle, because
in practice mind as we know it, and possess it, overcomes the defect only to a very limited extent. But
there is something in all mind to which nothing in
body corresponds: namely what we call in ordinary
unphilosophical language experience, as when we
speak of learning by experience. If a body undergoes a certain kind of change ninety-nine times, the
352
hundredth time it happens is still exactly like the
first; the fact that it has happened before makes no
difference to the way in which it happens now. If a
mind does something ninety-nine times, (25) it
arrives at the hundredth occasion with a difference:
this difference is something it has, as we say, learnt
by experience. Experience is a peculiar way in which,
in the world of mind, the past is preserved into the
present and forms a living and growing factor
conditioning the present. It is characteristic of mind
that it can look back at its past and forward to its
future, and around it at things outside its own body
in space. This power is the indispensable condition
of all the activities of mind, whether feeling or
knowing or acting. Things which are separated in
space from each other and from its own body it
perceives without moving from where that body is;
things which are separated in time it can remember
and expect without leaving its own temporal point
of view. Our present consciousness includes in itself,
not sometimes but invariably, a certain consciousness
of the past by way of memory; so that whereas the
various successive states of a body cannot be taken
together, some at least of the successive states of
a mind can, and must be in so far as it is a mind, by
being remembered. By remembering them, we make
our past experiences in a peculiar way not merely
past experiences but present experiences too.
The freedom which a mind has to determine its
own changes by its own spontaneous activity
is bound up with this power. We are free in so far as

353
our fresh acts are conditioned not by our past but
by our memories (26) of the past; not by our
environment but by our perception of our environment; in general, not by facts other than our activity
but by our consciousness of those facts. This
consciousness is itself an activity of our own;when
therefore our activity is conditioned by this
consciousness, our activity is being conditioned not
by something else but by itself, that is to say,it is free.
Another consequence of the same fact, or perhaps only another name for the same fact, is that
whereas the changes of bodies are mere changes,
in which the old state perishes when the new is
achieved, the changes of minds are developments;
a word which I am using to indicate a special kind
of change in which the old is preserved as an
element in the new. A child learning to speak his
mother-tongue is not simply passing through a
process of change, in which he does first one thing
and then another; the different things which he
comes to do enrich him with the power to do the
same kind of thing at will in the future, so that his
power of talking develops by degrees
into
something progressively complex. The old activity
of consciously making a certain kind of sound in
the past is preserved, as an enrichment of the
present activity, in the shape of a power to make
that kind of sound whenever he likes.
Thus the unbridgeable gulf which in the world
of body separates the actual present from the dead
past is bridged in the case of mind by the peculiar
354
operation of what I am (27) calling experience,
which converts past acts into present powers and
thus confers an altogether new character on the
fact of change. Whereas, for bodies, time always
gives with one hand and takes away with the other,
for minds, the passing of time means the acquiring of experience and the consequent enrichment
and development of mind's various activities.
In this way I think we should be justified in
saying that minds, by which you will remember
I mean not minds by themselves, if that means
anything, but minds with bodies of their own,
have a higher degree of reality than mere bodies.5
And if you will allow me to conclude with a
speculation which may perhaps scandalize you, but
will probably not scandalize you much more than
things I have said already, so that I may as well be
hanged for a sheep as for a considerable number of
lambs, I find myself wondering whether mind
itself may not be something which body has produced because of some kind of need to overcome
the defects in its own reality. There is plenty of
empirical evidence strongly suggesting that mind
has come into existence in a world which, if we go
far enough back in time, was a world of mere body;
5 At this point an asterisk originally indicated a crossed out
comment in the margin: 'I would remark in parenthesis that
the so-called problem of the relation between body and mind,
as dealt with by interactionism or psychophysical parallelism,
arises through conceiving body and mind as co-ordinate species
of a genus; i.e. is based on bad logic.' Presumably this comment
was superseded by Collingwood's addition to p. 16 above.
METHOD
and unless we are to
evidence, and reject
us about the history
AND METAPHYSICS
throw overboard all this
everything that scientists tell
of the earth.. .6
355
6 The manuscript ends abruptly at this point. A piece is

missing from the bottom right-hand corner of the page; at
some point it appears that this piece was attached with tape.
When the editor originally inspected the manuscript in the
early 19803 the piece was not missing and the final three words
on the page were readable. Collingwood is clearly concluding
the lecture, but to have continued the sentence would have
required going on to a fresh page as it could not have been concluded on the same line of the page. Inspection shows that the
word 'earth' must have been the last word on the line, and
therefore the conclusion of the sentence and presumably a concluding paragraph, must have been on a (missing) final page.
It is, however, possible to engage in informed speculation
about the content of Collingwood's concluding comments,
given that much of the latter part of the paper, especially its
discussion of abstract entities, body and mind, is closely
aligned to the discussion in the cosmological conclusion to the
1934 lectures on Nature and Mind, reprinted in The Principles
of History. For example, Collingwood there traces a similar
development from body to mind, a development culminating
in God. Paragraph 52 reads thus: 'Every stage in the advance
of nature consists in overcoming some form of externality,
advancing from one form of outwardness to the corresponding form of inwardness. The perfect development of mind,
as I have explained, would lead to a form of existence in which
there was no outwardness left unresolved: where not only
mind and nature, but even one mind and another mind, were
not merely different but fused this difference into a real unity.
Consequently the perfect development of mind would seem
to be a real culmination of the process of nature; not leading
on to any further development, but closing the course of
natural evolution. The world of nature would then have fulfilled its function in the life of God, and it would cease to exist.'

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In considering

the place of the Essay

I may perhaps be permitted here to refer to a book called

17 The second lecture contains a distillation of the argument

e.g., 'Method and Metaphysics', below, note 4. The point,

negative aspect in the lower which is rejected by the higher:

What it does prove is that essence involves existence, not

I have to show, then, that when I speak of the general nature

61 Collingwood instructed the Clarendon Press on the

An inquiry into the nature of metaphysics is a metaphysical

subtly appropriated to give rise to a truly original

without, as something external to the psychologist, as a natural

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II. THE OVERLAP OF CLASSES

22. Example of goodness

23. Example of pleasure

5. OPPOSITION AND DISTINCTION IN THE SCALE OF FORMS

2. THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL JUDGEMENT

3. FINAL STATEMENT AND PROOF OF THE PRINCIPLE

2. EXPOSITION OF THE IDEA

1 Rep. 509D seqq. The passages paraphrased are : ^ux1? fijreir

1 Discours de la Methode, premierepartie.

THE OVERLAP OF CLASSES

THE OVERLAP OF CLASSES

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THE OVERLAP OF CLASSES

THE OVERLAP OF CLASSES

THE OVERLAP OF CLASSES

THE OVERLAP OF CLASSES

THE OVERLAP OF CLASSES

THE OVERLAP OF CLASSES

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THE OVERLAP OF CLASSES

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THE OVERLAP OF CLASSES

THE OVERLAP OF CLASSES

THE OVERLAP OF CLASSES

THE OVERLAP OF CLASSES

THE SCALE OF FORMS

THE SCALE OF FORMS

THE SCALE OF FORMS

THE SCALE OF FORMS

THE SCALE OF FORMS

THE SCALE OF FORMS

THE SCALE OF FORMS

THE SCALE OF FORMS

THE SCALE OF FORMS

THE SCALE OF FORMS

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DEFINITION AND DESCRIPTION

DEFINITION AND DESCRIPTION

DEFINITION AND DESCRIPTION