Philosophers are often praised for their insight even if they are found wanting in their powers of analysis. The noble edifices of thought raised by the famous have been reduced to more or less noble ruins, if we consider what disintegrating, analytical time and tide have done to the weaker members of the structures. Some of the palaces of thought even seem to stand without any foundations. Yet they stand. They are admired no longer for their utility or for their massiveness, but for the beauty of their conception. Their conception is said to represent the insight of their authors.

Introduction: Purpose of this essay is to draw attention to some points which are relevant to the underlying philosophy of modern statistics, but which the writer feels have been largely overlooked both by the defenders and the opponents of the classic conceptions of Laplace. There is no quarrel with methodologies as such which have found their introduction under the heads of “maximum likelihood”, “fiducial limits”, etc. But the writer cannot accept arguments (e.g. Fisher (1)) which would make of such procedures an absolute sine qua non for all decisions based on evidence, and which would relegate human judgment (a priori probabilities) and all considerations of the intended use of a decision to the rubbish heap of outmoded conceptions. To assume that two rational minds, having different backgrounds and different objectives, must necessarily find themselves in agreement in their appraisal of a given objective situation, is simply absurd; yet this is the basis which underlies, so far as I can make out, all the “criticisms” of Laplace and Bayes which constitute the excuses put forward for attempting to displace those procedures in Statistics which involve “inverse probability”. Also the so-called “paradoxes” which have been invented by many writers in order to assail Laplace, contradict only this one assumption; without it they are not paradoxes.

In raising the question of what is a monad I am continuing along the line of two previous discussions. Those dwelt with the questions of what is an atom and what is a gene. Each contained proposals to sharpen meanings of old terms rather than to resort to new ones. The old term “monad” will also be subject to such a proposal. It will not mean merely any one of a dozen things it has meant to different users, but will serve as a more or less well fitting name for the third member of the sequence: atom-gene-x.

Freedom is variability within a system. I venture to give this definition as a natural extension of a series of discussions dealing with what I call materialistic analysis and insight. Objects and such, as I portrayed them, may be analyzed or comprehended as wholes (insighted). The questions were always lurking in my discussion, however, whether an analysis or an insight must be unique, whether it is sharply determined or not, whether it is fixed or variable, whether there are alternative analyses and insights, and whether in some sense one is “free” to choose his analysis or insight. In suggesting these questions, I was not referring to the possible lack of talent of the thinker, who might have a hopelessly single-track mind, but to the objective limitations set by the object being thought about and the observer doing the thinking. I was referring to an emphatically comprehensive freedom, persistently objective although it embraces a so-called “subject.” This freedom I would call materialistic or concrete freedom, and it is this freedom that I wish to discuss. What I call objective includes many things described—carelessly, I believe—as subjective. For better or for worse, I propose to limit the term subjective in connection with freedom to what would be specifically described as purely subjective. The purely subjective notion of freedom would make it absolute, completely arbitrary, infinitely variable, independent of matter as a pure phenomenon of mind, and empirically unverifiable in the sense of being most private. Such freedom I would be unable to discuss were I rash enough to want to do so. Such freedom is personal and mystical and hence not subject to the finite prison of discussion with its bars of language, its narrow bed of fact and its threat of the strait jacket for the prisoner who imagines words to be what they are not to all others. Otherwise, there is no objection to retaining the term “subjective” for the objective behavior of a “subject.” The blend of such subjective factors (arising in subjects) with factors we habitually call objective (arising in objects) I call materialistic. I have no more affection for the purely objective than for the purely subjective. The blend is the thing.

In the Prologue to the third book of Gargantua, Francois Rabelais compares his own predicament to that of the philosopher Diogenes of Sinope during the seige of Cornith. “I held it not a little disgraceful”, he confides, “to be only an idle spectator of so many valorous, eloquent and warlike persons, who in the view and sight of all Europe act this notable interlude or tragi-comedy, and not exert myself and contribute thereunto this nothing, my all, which remained for me to do”.

It is my pleasant task to open a series of discussions on the sciences which will continue here in Cooper Union for the rest of the season. A few words are necessary, therefore, to indicate the design of the pattern of the lecture series as a whole, as well as the specific place and quality of my own lecture.

Scientific method in philosophy has been so greatly developed and widely accepted in our day that it seems almost ready to lay claim to the self-evidence which an older rationalism professed. It is my belief that it leaves out something essential to philosophy. I shall not attempt to define scientific method in philosophy, since it is a movement with several wings, rather than a definite set of propositions accepted by all its advocates; but its intent is clear. The theme of current criticisms of metaphysics and speculation has been that philosophy has no private access to the truth, no monopoly of such knowledge as human beings possess; it stands on an equal footing with the sciences. The observation is sound and timely; but from it has been drawn, at least by implication, the conclusion that there is no such thing as philosophy at all. For unless it has a peculiar method, or a distinct subject matter, or some other distinguishing trait, philosophy is only a convenient name for a certain group of men and the books they wrote. The criticism was made because philosophy had come to be identified with a set of dogmas. I wish to suggest instead that it is a peculiar kind of inquiry into a distinct subject matter. Philosophy is the attempt to formulate principles or categories which the philosopher already possesses, in common with everyone else, but in an unformulated state. Philosophy is always developing theories and systems, but they are tentative, not final and dogmatic; the categories are certain, but their statement is provisional; therefore, the process of inquiry is unending.

The Abstract, Contrasted with the Intuitional-Causal Approach. There are two states of sophistication in the attitude which men of science have taken towards theories of natural phenomena. In the more abstract state, the purpose has been to seek the most harmonious scheme of coordination of the phenomena without raising the question of underlying causes and without adherence to some, or any, set of preconceived principles regarded primarily as fundamental starting points. In this state, the starting points have been sought in the phenomena themselves.

Some of the objections most frequently raised against the thesis of physicalism can be summarized as follows:

(V) The notions of the biological and social sciences, as e. g. organic whole and Gestalt, means and ends, leadership and hierarchical order, the entire structure and meaning of these scientific systems, are of a type essentially different from those of physics. Consequently they can not be expressed by means of the mathematical language used by physics, and it is “logically impossible” to reduce these sciences to physics.

The question of the character, function and possibility of philosophy can best be considered through an analysis of how men come to philosophize. Were the ideals man seeks always satisfactory to him and the consequences of his conduct and allegiances always what he expected, undoubtedly he would not be the philosophical animal he is. It is precisely because his emotional attachments are so often disillusioning and his actions ineffectual, that he is compelled to reflect upon what ends are worthwhile and what conduct and instrumentalities would bring them into being. Such reflection is the practice of philosophy and, where it is systematic and grounded on the evidence available, constitutes the discipline known as philosophy. Its source is living itself, and it is a kind of life. It is a method whereby life seeks the solution of its own problems; for living is made up of man's responses to his world, responses directed to the management of things for better and worse; and what would constitute the better and what the conditions are upon which it depends, are matters with which life will ever concern itself. The reconstruction of living so that it will have the utmost value is the primary objective of philosophy.

The coordination of both logical syntax and methodological analysis of scientific language by scientific empiricism (logical positivism) has achieved a twofold result:

1. Elimination of philosophical pseudo-problems and purification of the empirical sciences from the biases engendered in them by these problems.

2. Creation of an instrument apt for exact formulation, location, and analysis of the real meaning of the valid philosophical issues.

Stevens (7 pp. 249-251) has presented a “lusty embryonic” Science of Science, as having arisen out of “operationism as a revolution against absolute and undefinable concepts in physics, behaviorism as a revolution against dualistic mentalism in psychology, and Logical Positivism as a revolution against rational metaphysics in philosophy.”

The effort here is to use the plainest of plain language. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with the tenets of Pragmatism, Operationalism or Functionalism. If not, he may refer to innumerable philosophical works, or, if he must glance and run, he must perforce accept the fact that those terms are here used interchangeably to remind the reader of our basic idea that ideas are hypotheses.

What are the objects of thought? To consider a familiar case, may we assert that the proposition “I am thinking of a unicorn” entails that there is some object which is being thought of? Theories of subsistent objects provide an affirmative answer and seem to be based on the consideration that we are thinking of something when we think of a unicorn. Otherwise, to paraphrase G. E. Moore's well known statement of the argument, we would be thinking of the same thing whether we thought of a unicorn or a griffen, namely, nothing. But, as G. E. Moore has shown, subsistence theories fail to distinguish between the logical and grammatical forms of such statements as “I am thinking of a unicorn” and “I am hunting a lion”. The latter is of the form (∃x) · φx · Ψx; the former is not since it does not assert that the property of being a unicorn and the property of thought of by me both belong to something. But the problem that suggests itself is the nature of the contention that something is being thought of when, for example, we think of a unicorn. To begin with, is there no acceptable alternative to the various forms of the theory of subsistent objects according to which it would be correct to say that the proposition “I am thinking of a unicorn” entails the proposition “(∃x)·x is being thought of”? And if saying that we are thinking of something, when we think of a unicorn, does not mean that there exists something that is being thought of, what is the force of the contention that we are thinking of something?

It would appear that among scientific men discussion of the general principles of natural science (including the problem of causation) has, on the whole, proved more congenial to mathematicians (with their brothers-in-arms the logicians) and physicists than to biologists. Just why this should be so might be difficult to explain or justify. But one reason seems to lie in the comparative ambiguity of the concept of causation in biology. In general, the term causation has been used in science to designate the special rôle of active factors, rather than of passive or stable factors (more or less permanent “conditions”), in the determination of single events. By active factors we mean those which involve physical change, typically associated with transfer of energy; these are distinguished from stable factors or invariants which persist unchanged throughout the process under consideration. Thus in the classical isolated system, the total energy represents a stable factor which remains the same through all transformations of the system. The energy changes its form, potential or distribution, but not its total quantity. This rule of conservation defines a static condition persisting as a limiting factor through any case of change. Similarly, the permanent or unchanging factor in a machine consists in the stable properties and structural interconnections of its parts; together those constitute an invariant which fixes definitely the possible range of activity. Activity itself requires flow of energy; strictly speaking, a causal factor is not a static factor but is a change of some kind; releasing events (“trigger action”) are included under causal events since they introduce factors without which change does not occur.

In his monograph, “Foundations of the Theory of Signs”, Mr. Morris offers us a framework of ideas which is useful in analyzing many philosophic problems. On the basis of Morris' categories I want to show that it is both logically possible and desirable to make a distinction between two kinds of certainty. I will call them purely logical certainty and practical certainty (after Hume). They may be called syntactical certainty and pragmatical certainty also.

One thing which has struck me most as I have read the articles of the Encyclopedia of Unified Science is the complexity that can be discerned in many of the operations which for the purpose of the article are treated as elementary. It is apparent that Unity of Science, like every other discipline, has its own stock of “atoms of discourse”, suited to its own purposes. Experience in physics would prepare one to expect that for certain purposes it may be profitable to attempt to analyze these atoms further. The atom of discourse, or presupposition commonly made by most adherents of the Unity of Science movement, with which I shall be chiefly concerned, is with regard to the nature of “science“. My present concern with this matter has arisen from my extreme difficulty in communicating my meaning to other people. The difficulty has been a genuine puzzle to me, until quite recently a discussion with one of my colleagues disclosed a difference of attitude on fundamental matters so revelatory that I am encouraged to return again to the attack.

In the issue of Nature for January 1, 1938, Professor Dingle has given us a remarkably clear and thorough analysis of what the physicist really means, or ought to mean, by the principle that only that which is observable is physically real, or has physical meaning.

Charles Sanders Peirce, who contributed the term pragmatism to the language of philosophy, insisted always that the term was intended to designate a method. Pragmatism, he warned, is not a Weltanschauung, nor a doctrine of metaphysics, nor even an “attempt to determine any truth of things.” It is simply a method of ascertaining meanings, of making them clear, and of pointing a way for the successful determination of the truth of things. Peirce's practice consistently belied his preaching in this regard, for his exposition of the method involved a metaphysical system of considerable scope; and this, it seems to me, was unavoidable. Yet it was as a method that Peirce first presented his distinctive point of view, and it is primarily as a method that I wish to consider it here. Into metaphysics, or Weltanschauung, we shall surely be led; despite Peirce's pronouncement, I make no apology for that.

In a recent number of Philosophy of Science, Mr. C. D. Hardie offers some interesting suggestions concerning the problem of other minds. In his view the fact that we feel certain of their existence constitutes a problem; and he wishes to find a rational justification for this certainty. “What grounds have I for believing in the existence of other minds?” he asks. He is attracted by the traditional argument from analogy, but finds it incomplete; for “any conclusion arrived at by analogy and induction is at best only probable,” and “I am certain that other minds exist.” Again we find him remarking that “there is room for an account which (1) makes our knowledge of them depend in some way on analogy ... but which (2) is such that we can be certain that other minds exist. ...” (page 311)