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Life-form and Idealism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2010

Derek Bolton
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In this paper I shall suggest that philosophy which bases itself firmly inlife is incompatible with idealism. The example of such a philosophy to be discussed is the later work of Wittgenstein, and I shall define in what sense this is ‘based in life’, with particular reference to his concept of ‘Lebensform’, or ‘life-form’. I shall understand idealism to be, in general terms, the doctrine that idea is the primary, or the only, category of being. Various kinds of idealism may then be distinguished according to the precise definition each gives of ‘idea’, and of the category, if any, which is held to be less fundamental. Thus, in brief, in Platonic idealism, absolute immaterial being is ontologically prior to the changing world given to sense-experience; in the idealistic systems of more modern thought, mind is more fundamental than matter; or again, subject, or spirit, is more fundamental than object. While the various systems of idealism are properly classed together so far as they assign priority to the concept idea, it is clear that they differ in their interpretations of the concept. When one has in mind these differences, it is of course misconceived to speak of idealism as a single doctrine; nevertheless, it is plausible to suppose that philosophers have been led to apply the term ‘idealism’ to various systems despite their differences, because there is indeed a common tendency of thought to be found in them. The present paper takes this supposition as a working hypothesis, with the particular aim of establishing that philosophy based in life is incompatible with philosophy based in idea, whatever be reasonably meant by ‘idea’. In brief my argument will be this: that life is no idea.

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Papers
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Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 13: Idealism Past and Present , March 1982 , pp. 269 - 284
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 1982

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References

1 I am grateful to Professor Vesey for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

2 On the notion that form orders things into classes, see, for example, Parmenides, 130b–131aGoogle Scholar. On the account of form as absolute, see, for example, Phaedo, and Cratylus, 439b–440e.Google Scholar

3 Philosophical Investigations, Anscombe, G. E. M. and Rhees, R. (eds), trans. Anscombe, G. E. M. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1953).Google Scholar

4 On Certainty, Anscombe, G. E. M. and von Wright, G. H. (eds), trans. Paul, D. and Anscombe, G. E. M. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1969).Google Scholar

5 On Plato's criticism of the pre-Socratic philosophy, see particularly the Theaetetus.

6 SirNewton, Issac, The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1687)Google Scholar, Scholium to the Definitions; Berkeley, G., The Principles of Human Knowledge (1710), Part I, §§11, 110–117.Google Scholar

7 Locke, J., Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)Google Scholar, e.g. bk. II, chs. IV, VIII; Berkeley, G., op. cit.Google Scholar, Part I, §§1–39.

8 Brief statements relevant to idealism in the nineteenth century German tradition include the following: Kant, I., Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1781)Google Scholar, Introduction, and Preface to 2nd edn (1787); Fichte, J. G., first part of Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre (1794)Google Scholar; Schelling, F. W. J., Introduction to System des Transzendentalen Idealismus (1800)Google Scholar; Hegel, G. W. F., Preface to Phänomenologie des Geistes (1807)Google Scholar; and Schopenhauer, A., first section of Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, Vol. i (1819).Google Scholar

9 Kant, I., op. cit.Google Scholar, in the ‘Transcendental Aesthetic’ and the ‘Transcendental Logic’.

10 It is clear that to define ideas as immaterial is not necessarily to say that they are ‘in the mind’, or subjective in origin. Plato's ideas, particularly, have absolute existence. Myles Burnyeat, in his paper in the present series, argues that we find in Greek thought no idealism, by which he means, no basing of philosophy in the concept ‘mind’, or ‘subject’. My description of Plato's theory of forms as a kind of idealism does not contradict Burnyeat's point, with which I agree, but rather employs a broader definition of ‘idealism’. It is fruitless, I assume, to ask which among the several plausible definitions of ‘idealism’ is ‘the correct one’, provided it is made clear which similarities and distinctions the term is intended to mark. Burnyeat wishes to contrast the ‘realism’ of Greek thought with the mentalist and subjectivist themes in modern thought, and uses the term ‘idealism’ for the latter. My aim has been to contrast the primary emphasis on human activity, to be found in Wittgenstein's later work, and in other recent philosophy, with immaterialism, usually in the context of transcendental philosophy, which is confound in both Platonic and more modern thought, and which I have called ‘idealism’. This broad conception of idealism, within which important distinctions may doubtless be made, accords with those employed by, for example, Acton, H. B. in his entry ‘Idealism’ in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. 4, Edwards, P. (ed.) (London: Collier-Macmillan, 1967)Google Scholar; Russell, B., in his History of Western Philosophy (London: Allen and Unwin, 1946), 139Google Scholar et passim; and Windelband, W., Geschichte der Philosophie (Freiburg i.B., 1892), §11 et passim.Google Scholar

11 I should like to thank Professor H. G. Adler for his suggestion that I include this remark.

12 Patrick Gardiner's paper in the present series brings out this point clearly with respect to Fichte. He points out that Fichte's active epistemology anticipates the view that our practical concerns shape our apprehension of the world, a view found in various forms in pragmatism, existentialism, also in Wittgenstein's later work. But he stresses that this is only part of Fichte's concern, which is also to define a transcendental basis of experience in the activity of the ego, pp. 119–122.

13 Williams, Bernard, ‘Wittgenstein and Idealism’, in Understanding Wittgenstein, Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures, Vol. 7, 1972–73, Vesey, G. (ed.) (London: Macmillan, 1974)Google Scholar. An ‘idealist’ interpretation of Wittgenstein's later work has been proposed also by Gellner, Ernest, ‘The New Idealism—Causes and Meaning in the Social Sciences’, in Positivism and Sociology, Giddens, A. (ed.) (Heinemann Educational Books, 1974).Google Scholar

14 Professor Malcolm, in his paper in the present series, shows convincingly by argument and by textual reference that the ‘we’ in Wittgenstein's later remarks always refers to some actual human group or society. However, he does not see the reasoning behind Professor Williams' ‘transcendental idealist’ interpretation, as he himself says (p. 254), and consequently does not bring out its full strength.

15 This metaphor seems to me in the spirit of Kafka; compare, for example, his short story, Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer. Kafka has explored deeply what it means to have only partial, limited, understanding.