An essay on metaphysics

Oxford University Press, Amen House, London E.C. .j.. EDINBURGH GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON

BOMBAY

CALCUTTA

MADRAS

CAPE TOWN

Geoffrey Cumberlege, Publisher to the University

FIRST EDITION 1940

Reprinted photographically in Great Britain at the Oxford Umversity Press, I948 from sheets of the first edition

AN ESSAY ON

METAPHYSICS BY

R. G. COLLINGWOOD

OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

GENIO SAN CTAND RENSIVM QVI • HAEC . SCRIPSIT INTER· EOSDEM . ADLECTVS

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PREFACE THIS is not so much a book of metaphysics as a book about metaphysics. What I have chiefly tried to do in it is neither to expound my own metaphysical ideas, nor to criticize the metaphysical ideas of other people; but to explain what metaphysics is, why it is necessary to the well-being and advancement of knowledge, and how it is to be pursued. In the second place I have tried to dispel certain misconceptions about it which have led (and, had they been true, would have led with perfect justice) to the conclusion that metaphysics is a blind alley of thought into which knaves and fools have combined these many centuries past to lure the human intellect to its destruction. In the third place I have offered to the reader's attention a few examples of metaphysics itself, in order to show how metaphysical inquiry will be conducted if the principles laid down in the opening chapters are taken as sound. These examples occupy nearly half the book; but they are meant to be considered as forming not its main body but a kind of appendix or group of appendices which might be called, as Descartes called a corresponding feature in a book of his own, specimina philosophandi. One of them, that on causation, has already been printed in a different. shape in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society for the present year. There are three debts in connexion with the writing

PREFACE of this book which I wish to record. First to the University of Oxford for a year's leave of absence on medical grounds from my duties. The duties of a professor may not be very arduous, but they do not encourage a state of mind favourable to the writing of books. Secondly to a wise man of Harley Street (notions about the etiquette of his profession forbid me to name him publicly) who told me that if my leave of absence was to produce the intended result I must use it as an opportunity for writing. Thirdly to Mijnheer C. Koningstein of the Blue Funnel Line, master of the motor vessel Alcinous, who rigged me up an open-air study on his own Captain'S Bridge where I could work all day without interruption, and thus made it possible for me to write the first draft of the book during a voyage from England to Java under perfect conditions. . R. G. C. viii

S.S. Rhesus, off CAPE ST. VINCENT, 2

April I939.

'CONTENTS PART I: METAPHYSICS 1. Aristotle's Metaphysics "11. No Science of Pure Being IJI. Metaphysics without Ontology ~V. On Presupposing .. ·V" The Science of Absolute Presuppositions . vi.' Metaphysics an Historical Science VII. The ReforIl}, of Metaphysics .

VIII. IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. :XIV. t-XV. "XVI. _XVII.

3 II

17 2i

34 49

58

PART II: ANTI-METAPHYSICS What Anti-Metaphysics Is 81 ' Psychology as Anti-Metaphysics 101 Psychology as the Science of Feeling. 106 Psychology as the Pseudo-Science of Thought 112 A Pseudo-Science refutes itself 122 The Propaganda of Irrationalism 133 Positivistic Metaphysics 143 A Positivistic Misinterpretation of Plato 155 Suicide of Positivistic ).VIetaphy~ics 162 The Son of the Child 172 PART Ill: EXAMPLES PART IlIA: THE EXISTENCE

OF GOD

'XVIII. The Proposition 'God Exists' . '185 XIX. Religion and Natural Science in Primitive Society 19 1 XX. Polytheistic and Monotheistic Science 201 XXI. Quicunque Vult 213

CONTENTS

x

PART IIIB:

THE METAPHYSICS OF KANT

XXII. Kant's Problem and the Problem of To-day

23I

XXIII. Metaphysics and Critical Philosophy

237

XXIV. Metaphysics as Transcendental Analytics

243

XXV. Axioms of Intuition . XXVI. Anticipations of Perception . XXVII. Analogies of Experience XXVIII. Postulates of Empirical Thought

248 258 262 273

PART HIe: CAUSATION

XXIX. Three Senses of the Word 'Cause' XXX. Causation in History . XXXI. Causation in Practical Natural Science XXXII. Causation in Theoretical Natural Science

285 290 29 6

31 3

XXXIII. Causation in Kantian Philosophy

328

XXXIV. Epilogue

338

INDEX

345

PART I

METAPHYSICS

I

ARISTOTLE'S METAPHYSICS

IN writing about metaphysics it is only decent, and it is certainly wise, to begin with Aristotle. Metaphysics, as known to all the peoples whose civilization is derived either wholly or to any considerable extent from Christian or Mohammedan sources, is still the science that Aristotle created. "Unless we understand its motive in Aristotle's mind and' its function in Aristotle's system we are not likely to understand its later history or the obscurities which surround its present position. The first step, therefore, towards clearing these obscurities away is to ask what the name stands for in Aristotle's writings. The literally correct answer is that it does not stand for anything there, because it does not occur there. It is not Aristotle's name for an Aristotelian science. Th~ word 'metaphysics'l represents the Greek phrase 'Ta [.LETa 'Ta cpva'Ka, 'the [books] next I 'Physics', 'metaphysics', 'ethics', 'politics', and 'economics' are plural in English because they are names of Aristotelia,n treatises, and a treatise which will go into one modern volume had to be spread over several Greek volumes. But because each of these represents only a single science, these plural substantives gov!!rn singular verbs: 'physics is .. .' not 'physics are .. .' We say 'logic', not 'logics', because there is ,.!loAristotelian treatise Ta AOY£KU. There is, however, a group of works collectively called Td dvaXvT£Ka, and from this we have in English 'analytics'. Substantives like 'metaphysic', 'ethic', 'analytic', aresoI'eCisms, due to pedantic imitation or ignorant translation of forms whiCh are correct in other languages,

4

ARISTOTLE'S METAPHYSICS

after the Physics'; and this phrase was used not by Aristotle himself but by his ancient editors as a title for a certain group of treatises which they placed in that position in the corpus of the master's works. As to what those treatises contain, the phrase is entirely non-committal. In its first and most proper sense, therefore, as a title borne by one of Aristotle's works, 'metaphysics' is not the name of a science. It is the name of a book. It corresponds in modern usage not with such titles as Plane Trigonometry or The Origin of Species, but with such titles as Collected Works, vo!. viii. For us, no dqubt, the word is no longer merely the name of a book by Aristotle. It is the name of a s~ience ..The word 'science', in its original sense, which is still its proper sense not in the English language alone but in the international language of European civilization, means a body of systematic or orderly thinking about a determinate subject-matter. This is the sense and the only sense in which I shall use it. There is also a slang sense of the word, unobjectionable (like all slang) on its lawful occasions, parallel to the slang use of the word 'hall' for-a musichall or the word 'drink' for alcoholic drink, ip. which it stands for natural science. Metaphysics is for us the name of a science, and has been for many centuries, because for many centuries it has been found necessary, and still is found necessary, to think in a systematic or orderly fashion about the subjects 'that Aristotle discussed in the group of treatises collectively known by that name.

ARISTOTLE'S METAPHYSICS

5

Towards the end of the eighteenth century Kan.!, observed that logic had unde~gical changes slnce.i! lef!!he l:!~1.tds of...A.r.istQtle... The same observation can be made towards the middle of the twentieth about metaphysics. A great deal of work has been done in metaphysics since Aristotle created it; but this work has never involved a radical reconsideration of the question what!!!etaphysics is. A great deal of grumbling has been done about it, too, and a great many people have declared the whole thing to be a lot of nonsense; but this, too, has never involved a radical reconsideration of what the thing is. On that question Aristotle bequeathed to his successors a pronouncement containing certain obscurities; and from his time to our own these obscurities have never been cleared up. To clear them up is the task of the present essay. Aristotle calls the science of metaphysics by no less than three different names. Sometimes he calls jt First Science, 7TPWry pc.>..OCTOcPta., cP,'AoCTOcPta. being his regular name for science as I have just defined the word. The word 'first' refersJ.QjQgj.~rity. -First Science 1S the science 'Yh~se s~i ec!,:!.!!!!!er i~J