THE
PROBLEM OF TRUTH
BY H. WILDON CARR
HONORARY D.LITT., DURHAM
LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK
67 LONG ACRE, W.C., AND EDINBURGH
NEW YORK: DODGE PUBLISHING CO.
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PREFACE
A problem of philosophy is completely different from a problem of
science. In science we accept our subject-matter as it is presented in
unanalysed experience; in philosophy we examine the first principles
and ultimate questions that concern conscious experience itself. The
problem of truth is a problem of philosophy. It is not a problem of
merely historical interest, but a present problem--a living
controversy, the issue of which is undecided. Its present interest may
be said to centre round the doctrine of pragmatism, which some fifteen
years ago began to challenge the generally accepted principles of
philosophy. In expounding this problem of truth, my main purpose has
been to make clear to the reader the nature of a problem of philosophy
and to disclose the secret of its interest. My book presumes no
previous study of philosophy nor special knowledge of its problems.
The theories that I have shown in conflict on this question are, each
of them, held by some of the leaders of philosophy. In presenting
them, therefore, I have tried to let the full dialectical force of the
argument appear. I have indicated my own view, that the direction in
which the solution lies is in the new conception of life and the theory
of knowledge given to us in the philosophy of Bergson. If I am right,
the solution is not, like pragmatism, a doctrine of the nature of
truth, but a theory of knowledge in which {vi} the dilemma in regard to
truth does not arise. But, as always in philosophy, the solution of
one problem is the emergence of another. There is no finality.
My grateful acknowledgment is due to my friend Professor S. Alexander,
who kindly read my manuscript and assisted me with most valuable
suggestions, and also to my friend Dr. T. Percy Nunn for a similar
service.
H. WILDON CARR.
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CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS
II. APPEARANCE AND REALITY
III. THE LOGICAL THEORIES
IV. THE ABSOLUTE
V. PRAGMATISM
VI. UTILITY
VII. ILLUSION
VIII. THE PROBLEM OF ERROR
IX. CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
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THE PROBLEM OF TRUTH
CHAPTER I
PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS
The progress of physical science leads to the continual discovery of
complexity in what is first apprehended as simple. The atom of
hydrogen, so long accepted as the ideal limit of simplicity, is now
suspected to be not the lowest unit in the scale of elements, and it is
no longer conceived, as it used to be, as structureless, but as an
individual system, comparable to a solar system, of electrical
components preserving an equilibrium probably only temporary. The same
tendency to discover complexity in what is first apprehended as simple
is evident in the study of philosophy. The more our simple and
ordinary notions are submitted to analysis, the more are profound
problems brought to consciousness. It is impossible to think that we
do not know what such an ordinary, simple notion as that of truth is;
yet the attempt to give a definition of its meaning brings quite
unexpected difficulties to light, and the widest divergence at the
present time between rival principles of philosophical interpretation
is in regard to a theory of the nature of truth. It is not a problem
that is pressed on us by any felt need, nor is anyone who does not feel
its interest called upon to occupy himself with it. We speak our
language before we know its {10} grammar, and we reason just as well
whether we have learnt the science of logic or not.
This science of Logic, or, as it is sometimes called, of Formal Logic,
was, until modern times, regarded as a quite simple account of the
principles that govern the exercise of our reasoning faculty, and of
the rules founded on those principles by following which truth was
attained and false opinion or error avoided. It was called formal
because it was supposed to have no relation to the matter of the
subject reasoned about, but only to the form which the reasoning must
take. A complete account of this formal science, as it was recognised
and accepted for many ages, might easily have been set forth within the
limits of a small volume such as this. But the development of modern
philosophy has wrought an extraordinary change. Anyone now who will
set himself the task of mastering all the problems that have been
raised round the question of the nature of logical process, will find
himself confronted with a vast library of special treatises, and
involved in discussions that embrace the whole of philosophy. The
special problem of truth that it is the object of this little volume to
explain is a quite modern question. It has been raised within the
present generation of philosophical writers, and is to-day, perhaps,
the chief controversy in which philosophers are engaged. But although
it is only in the last few years that controversy has been aroused on
this question, the problem is not new--it is indeed as old as
philosophy itself. In the fifth century before Christ, and in the
generation that immediately preceded Socrates, a famous philosopher,
Protagoras (481-411 B.C.) published a book with the title _The Truth_.
He had the misfortune, common at that time, to offend the religious
Athenians, {11} for he spoke slightingly of the gods, proposing to
"banish their existence or non-existence from writing and speech." He
was convicted of atheism, and his books were publicly burnt, and he
himself, then seventy years of age, was either banished or at least was
obliged to flee from Athens, and on his way to Sicily he lost his life
in a shipwreck. Our knowledge of this book of Protagoras is due to the
preservation of its argument by Plato in the dialogue "Theætetus."
Protagoras, we are there told, taught that "man is the measure of all
things--of the existence of things that are, and of the non-existence
of things that are not." "You have read him?" asks Socrates,
addressing Theætetus. "Oh yes, again and again," is Theætetus' reply.
Plato was entirely opposed to the doctrine that Protagoras taught. It
seemed to him to bring gods and men and tadpoles to one level as far as
truth was concerned; for he drew the deduction that if man is the
measure of all things, then to each man his own opinion is right.
Plato opposed to it the theory that truth is the vision of a pure
objective reality.
This same problem that exercised the ancient world is now again a chief
centre of philosophical interest, and the aim of this little book is
not to decide that question, but to serve as a guide and introduction
to those who desire to know what the question is that divides
philosophers to-day into the hostile camps of pragmatism and
intellectualism.
The subject is not likely to interest anyone who does not care for the
study of the exact definitions and abstract principles that lie at the
basis of science and philosophy. There are many who are engaged in the
study of the physical and natural sciences, and also many who devote
themselves to the social and political {12} sciences, who hold in
profound contempt the fine distinctions and intellectual subtleties
that seem to them the whole content of logic and metaphysic. The
attitude of the scientific mind is not difficult to understand. It has
recently been rather graphically expressed by a distinguished and
popular exponent of the principles of natural science. "One may regard
the utmost possibilities of the results of human knowledge as the
contents of a bracket, and place outside the bracket the factor _x_ to
represent those unknown and unknowable possibilities which the
imagination of man is never wearied of suggesting. This factor _x_ is
the plaything of the metaphysician."[1] This mathematical symbol of
the bracket, multiplied by _x_ to represent the unknown and unknowable
possibilities beyond it, will serve me to indicate with some exactness
the problem with which I am going to deal. The symbol is an expression
of the agnostic position. The popular caricature of the metaphysician
and his "plaything" we may disregard as a pure fiction. The unknowable
_x_ of the agnostic is not the "meta" or "beyond" of physics which the
metaphysician vainly seeks to know. The only "beyond" of physics is
consciousness or experience itself, and this is the subject-matter of
metaphysics. Our present problem is that of the bracket, not that of
the factor outside, if there is any such factor, nor yet the particular
nature of the contents within. There are, as we shall see, three views
that are possible of the nature of the bracket. In one view, it is
merely the conception of the extent which knowledge has attained or can
attain; it has no intimate relation to the knowledge, but marks
externally its limit. This is the view of the realist. In another
view, the whole of knowledge is intimately related {13} to its
particular parts; the things we know are not a mere collection or
aggregate of independent facts that we have discovered; the bracket
which contains our knowledge gives form to it, and relates organically
the dependent parts to the whole in one comprehensive individual
system. This is the view of the idealist. There is yet another view:
human knowledge is relative to human activity and its needs; the
bracket is the ever-changing limit of that activity--within it is all
that is relevant to human purpose and personality without it is all
that is irrelevant. This is the view of the pragmatist.
It is not only the scientific mind, but also the ethical and religious
mind, that is likely to be at least impatient, if not contemptuous, of
this inquiry. The question What is truth? will probably bring to
everyone's mind the words uttered by a Roman Procurator at the supreme
moment of a great world-tragedy. Pilate's question is usually
interpreted as the cynical jest of a judge indifferent to the
significance of the great cause he was trying--the expression of the
belief that there is no revelation of spiritual truth of the highest
importance for our human nature, or at least that there is no
infallible test by which it can be known. It is not this problem of
truth that we are now to discuss.
There are, on the other hand, many minds that can never rest satisfied
while they have accepted only, and not examined, the assumptions of
science and the values of social and political and religious ideals.
Their quest of first principles may appear to more practical natures a
harmless amusement or a useless waste of intellectual energy; but they
are responding to a deep need of our human nature, a need that, it may
be, is in its very nature insatiable--the need of intellectual
satisfaction. It is {14} the nature of this intellectual satisfaction
itself that is our problem of truth.
There are therefore two attitudes towards the problem of truth and
reality--that of the mind which brings a practical test to every
question, and that of the mind restless to gain by insight or by
speculation a clue to the mystery that enshrouds the meaning of
existence. The first attitude seems peculiarly to characterise the man
of science, who delights to think that the problem of reality is simple
and open to the meanest understanding. Between the plain man's view
and that of the man of high attainment in scientific research there is
for him only a difference of degree, and science seems almost to
require an apology if it does not directly enlarge our command over
nature. It would explain life and consciousness as the result of
chemical combination of material elements. Philosophy, on the other
hand, is the instinctive feeling that the secret of the universe is not
open and revealed to the plain man guided by common-sense experience
alone, even if to this experience be added the highest attainments of
scientific research. Either there is far more in matter than is
contained in the three-dimensional space it occupies, or else the
universe must owe its development to something beyond matter. The
universe must seem a poor thing indeed to a man who can think that
physical science does or can lay bare its meaning. It is the intense
desire to catch some glimpse of its meaning that leads the philosopher
to strive to transcend the actual world by following the speculative
bent of the reasoning power that his intellectual nature makes possible.
[1] Sir Kay Lankester.
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