a variety of sources, and that they converged in the same direction was a coincidence; the case against them was based on 'misapprehensions' or 'commonplaces of philosophic thought'.
(1) Among the latter he reckons his constant use of purpose and teleology, seeing that the 'categories' of end and purpose go back to Plato, Aristotle and Leibniz, all of whom he regards as absolutists.[1]
Now I am quite willing to believe that historically these categories entered Prof. Taylor's mind from the study of Plato and Aristotle, and that he is indebted for their application to Profs. Ward and Royce. But this explanation hardly seems logically sufficient seeing that (1) much prominence has been given to the definition of pragmatism as 'a thorough-going recognition of the influence of the purposiveness of thought on all our cognitive activities'; (2) that this was emphasised just because current absolutism has tried to ignore a feature so inconvenient to itself; and (3) that he had himself been expressly challenged to show how an Absolute could have a purpose. Or can it really be that Prof. Taylor has not yet become aware that there is a difficulty here, a difficulty, that is, in conceiving an Absolute, which is really absolute, i.e. a Whole which is complete, possessed by a purpose of completing itself?[2]
I hope therefore it will not be thought churlish of me to say that what was wanted was not an account of whence Prof. Taylor took his ideas on the matter, but a proof of their logical congruity with his absolutism. And no appeal to Messrs. Ward and Royce (and still less to the ancients) avails him here. Indeed it seems
- ↑ I cannot imagine why Prof. Taylor should attribute to me an insane desire to "put Plato, Aristotle and Leibniz under a ban". I have often expressed the greatest admiration for them all. They were all intellectualists no doubt, in some respects, but not one of them can properly be called an absolutist. Leibniz was (predominantly) a pluralist, Plato and Aristotle were both dualists, as even Dr. Caird reluctantly admits. Moreover, Aristotle's account of the practical reason (φρόνησις) is pure pragmatism, while Plato's Idea of Good verbally and in meaning coincides with the definition of pragmatism quoted above. As regards this particular question, moreover, they both had a perfect right to be teleologists, seeing that neither of them identified the good with the All, and that this identification is just the great moral and metaphysical stumbling-block in the way of absolutism. I can only suppose therefore that Prof. Taylor is not referring to the historic doctrines of these thinkers at all, but to some strangely mutilated form thereof which he has seen exhibited in some of his "Anglo-Hegelian lecture-rooms".
- ↑ Prof. Bosanquet apparently prefers to fling himself upon the other horn of the dilemma. He conceives the Whole as in 'change or progress' and therefore in 'time' (N.S., 57, p. 10). But the result is merely to attribute to the Absolute (with Lotze) a causeless and meaningless instability (cf. Humanism, pp. 73-75, 78). The mischief lies far deeper. The recognition of ends and purposes always rests ultimately upon selection of some kind. But the Absolute or Whole stands for a principle not of selection but of all-inclusiveness. It cannot therefore be credited with selective emphasis on any of its 'parts'.
