Common Sense (Seminary vs Laboratory)

1.126-29       G-c.1905-6

  126 .... The kind of philosophy which interests me and must,
I think, interest everybody is that philosophy, which uses the
most rational methods it can devise, for finding out the little
that can as yet be found out about the universe of mind and
matter from those observations which every person can make
in every hour of his waking life. It will not include matters
which are more conveniently studied by students of specia,
sciences, such as psychology. Thus, everybody has remarked
that there are four prominent qualities of the sense of taste,
sweet, sour, salt, and bitter. But there may be other tastes,
not so readily made out without special study; and in any case
tastes are conveniently studied in connexion with fiavors and
odors, which make a difficult experimental inquiry. Besides,
the four tastes are altogether special and throw no light on the
problems which, on account of their extreme generality, will
naturally be examined by a class of researchers of entirely
different aptitudes from those which adapt men to the discovery
of recondite facts.
  127. If anybody asks what there is in the study of obvious
phenomena to make it particularly interesting, I will give two
answers. The first is the one which seems to me the strongest;
the other is that which nobody can fail to feel the force of.
The first answer is that the spirit in which, as it seems to me,
philosophy ought to be studied is the spirit in which every
branch of science ought to be studied; namely, the spirit of
joy in learning ourselves and in making others acquainted with
the glories of God. Each person will feel this joy most in the

  * From "Introduction showing the point of view from which Philosophy
appears to the author to be an interesting subject to a rnan of comrnon-sense,"
in the Notebook, "Sketch of Some Proposed Chapters on the Sect of
Philosophy Called Pragmatism." c. 1905.
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particular branch of science to which his faculties are best
adapted. It is not a sin to have no taste for philosophy as I
define philosophy. As a matter of fact, however, almost
everybody does feel an interest in philosophical problems, especially
at that time of life at which he is spoiling for an intellectual
tussle.
  128. It is true that philosophy is in a lamentably crude
condition at present; that very little is really established about
it; while most philosophers set up a pretension of knowing all
there is to know -- a pretension calculated to disgust anybody
who is at home in any real science. But all we have to do is to
turn our backs upon all such truly vicious conduct, and we
shall find ourselves enjoying the advantages of having an
almost virgin soil to till, where a given amount of really
scientific work will bring in an extraordinary harvest, and that a
harvest of very fundamental truth of exceptional value from
every point of view.
  129. This consideration touches upon the second reason
for studying laboratory-philosophy (as contradistinguished
from seminary-philosophy). It is that the special sciences are
obliged to take for granted a number of most important
propositions, because their ways of working afford no means of
bringing these propositions to the test. In short, they always rest
upon metaphysics. At one time, for example, we find physicists,
Kelvin, Maxwell and others, assuming that a body cannot act
where it is not, meaning by "where it is not" where its lines
of force do not centre. At another time, we find them
assuming that the laws of mechanics (induding the principles of
metric geometry) hold good for the smallest corpuscles. Now
it is one thing to infer from the laws of little things how great
things, that consist of little things, will act; but it is quite a
different thing to infer from the phenomena presented by great
things how single things billions of times smaller will act.
It is like inferring that because in any country one man in so
many will commit suicide, therefore every individual, once in
such a period of time, will make an attempt at suicide. The
psychical sciences, especially psychology, are, if possible, even
more necessitated to assume general principles that cannot be
proved or disproved by their ordinary methods of work. The
philosopher alone is equipped with the facilities for examining
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such " axioms " and for determining the degree to which
confidence may safely be reposed in them. Find a scientific man who
proposes to get along without any metaphysics -- not by any
means every man who holds the ordinary reasonings of
metaphysicians in scorn -- and you have found one whose doctrines
are thoroughly vitiated by the crude and uncriticized meta
physics with which they are packed. We must philosophize,
said the great naturalist Aristotle* -- if only to avoid
philosophizing. Every man of us has a metaphysics, and has to have
one; and it will influence his life greatly. Far better, then, that
that metaphysics should be criticized and not be allowed to run
loose. A man may say "I will content myself with common
sense." I, for one, am with him there, in the main. I shall
show why I do not think there can be any direct profit in going
behind common sense -- meaning by common sense those ideas
and beliefs that man's situation absolutely forces upon him.
We shall later see more definitely what is meant.t I agree, for
example, that it is better to recognize that some things are red
and some others blue, in the teeth of what optical philosophers
say, that it is merely that some things are resonant to shorter
ether waves and some to longer ones. But the difficulty is to
determine what really is and what is not the authoritative
decision of common sense and what is merely obiter dictum. In
short, there is no escape from the need of a critical examination
of "first principles."