What Kind of Philosophy is Philosophy Enough?

Writing in the early 50’s, Morton
White had observed that "although there were many mansions in philosophy,
the more splendid ones housed metaphysics, logic, epistemology, and ethics,
which lived on a commanding hilltop, while somewhere downtown were the
two-family dwellings for political philosophy and jurisprudence, the small
apartments for aesthetics, and the boardinghouses for philosophers of the
special sciences" (xi).  Disturbed however by this ‘invidious ordering of
the philosophical disciplines," he came to think that "a more
democratic division of housing should be devised, one that provided better
quarters for the deprived disciplines" (xi).    

 In the present book (2002), and a half century later, White
articulates within the context of the Anglo-American Analytic tradition, in the
language and within the preoccupations proper to that tradition (and of which
he has been a prominent and eloquent proponent) the reasons why he has come to
disagree with some of its main tenets or articles of belief.  In particular, he
explains why he has come to disagree with, and reject Quine’s view that
"philosophy of science is philosophy enough" (x-xi, 5, 59-60, 108).
And so, this work relates in part White’s own relatively early ‘conversion’ or
change of mind. But its central philosophical aim is to demonstrate why
philosophers, who wish to "avoid the blind alleys of full-fledged
classical rationalism and half-fledged neo-rationalism" (4. 187) should
accept instead that "philosophy of culture is philosophy enough" (5,
187). His main argument is that any philosopher who adopts and applies the
doctrine of ‘holistic pragmatism‘ (properly understood) consistently and
thoroughly must come to this ‘salutary’ conclusion.

 Interestingly though,  he adopts
for his purpose the formulation of this doctrine as stated explicitly and
perhaps most perspicuously by Quine himself –in his well-known and influential
1951 paper "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" (1, 67). But as he points out,
contrary to what is commonly believed, it was actually laid out most defensibly
by Tarski in a 1944 personal letter to him (67). He then turns it
systematically against Quine, whose ‘democratic credentials’ vis-à-vis
the philosophical disciplines were arguably not broad or consistent enough
–though they were admittedly broader than those of the logical positivists
against whom he had mounted his own rather successful attack. He also turns
it as well against other early Pragmatic and Analytic philosophers who, he
argues, had not gone far enough in their rejection of rationalism, or been
consistent and thoroughgoing enough in their holism or their pragmatism. Finally,
he argues that his holistic pragmatism can also serve to indict a number of
other philosophers in the history of modern philosophy –from Descartes onward,
and in fact, up until the early part of the 20^th century, including
those that he calls "part-time rationalists" or "half-hearted
anti-rationalists" (xii, 4)–providing however judicious qualifications
and exemptions in specific cases, as warranted.

Though he recognizes both William
James and John Dewey as the pragmatists whose holism makes them unquestionably
"the progenitors of more recent efforts to broaden the scope of philosophy
from an examination of logic and physics to an empirical examination of other
elements of civilization or culture" (6), White meticulously endeavors to
pointedly bring out their "occasional lapses into rationalism." He
does so on the basis of some original textual analyses worthy of our attention.

His main strategy in each and all
cases consists in bringing out and undermining tacit or explicit conceptual dualisms,
sharp theoretical distinctions and strict disciplinary
divisions underlying the philosophical views of these thinkers, and that,
he argues quite rightly, are untenable upon closer scrutiny. Some of the most
well-known dualisms and distinctions include: pure reason vs. sensory
experience, rational vs. empirical, a priori vs. a posteriori,
coercions of the ideal order vs. coercions of the sensible order, relations of
ideas vs. matters of fact, analytic vs. synthetic statements, necessary truths
vs. contingent truths, eternal truths vs. sensible truths, truths of logic and
mathematics vs. truths of natural science, observation sentences vs. moral
judgments, cognitive vs. emotional or moral, etc. Needless to say, these
typically served to underwrite and justify the traditional divisions,  
boundaries and hierarchies commonly drawn not only between various areas of
philosophy (metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, logic, ethics, political
philosophy, philosophy of art, philosophy of religion, etc) but between
different disciplines as well (science, mathematics, philosophy, psychology,
art, theology, history, law, politics, etc).    

For the sake of terminological
clarification, it should be said that White uses the term "culture"
interchangeably with "civilization" to denote a whole range of human
endeavors and their corresponding institutional practices, and not in the sense
in which some anthropologists or cultural studies theorists use it (xiii, 1).[1]

When, by his own account, White
first realized that metaphysics and epistemology were in fact empirical
disciplines, he subsequently came to see more clearly than he had before that
the so-called privileged parts of philosophy could not defend their conclusions
by a priori methods, as they presumed to do. Hence, he became even more
convinced of the necessity of a more democratic reapportionment of the many
"houses of philosophy," and making an explicit acknowledgement of the
diverse and equally valuable practices housed and carried out therein.

That is why he now believes that
(natural) science is merely one cultural institution among many others,
whose practices and workings philosophers may and of course should study and
examine –preferably from a holistically pragmatic point of view [as Duhem, Tarski
and Quine for example had done (see relevant discussions in chapters IV, V and
VI)]. Similarly however, he believes that philosophers may and in fact should
study and examine the practices and workings of other institutions –as well
from the same point of view as long as it is done consistently. Thus they may
study and examine, for example:  psychology and religion [as
William James for example has done in rather ground breaking ways, though not
always consistently with his own holistic pragmatism (see chapter II)], art
[as John Dewey and Goodman have done, each in their own way and more or less
successfully, with occasional lapses into dualism and rationalism (see chapters
III and VIII)], history [as White himself has done, and other
empiricists before and after him had also done (see chapter VII)], law [as
Oliver Wendell Holmes has done, and as his old boyhood-friend James also
suggested we do later on (see chapter IX)], and most importantly, at least for
White’s overarching argument, morality and politics as well  [as
John Rawls has done in notable and commendable ways (see chapter X)]. The key
point of his overarching argument –also his main point of contention with
Quine over whether a strict and firm distinction can be drawn justifiably
between science and ethics— is first introduced and
substantiated further in chapters I and X-XI respectively. 

Consistently then with his
holistic, empirical and pragmatic stance, White argues that what distinguishes
the different disciplines associated with various elements of culture is their different
vocabularies and substantive statements, and not the fact that we use
fundamentally different methods in supporting these statements.      

As already suggested above, White’s
book, comprising 11 chapters, weaves together two main threads: one that is
historical and another that is, properly speaking, more argumentative.  It is
clearly written, carefully argued, and full of noteworthy details from a
scholarly point of view. In each chapter, White takes great care in sorting out
judiciously and fairly the valid and positive points from the objectionable and
untenable contributions of the philosophers he discusses.

In order to convey more than a
superficial appreciation of the main thrust of his view, I will focus on his
characterization of holistic pragmatism, and examine how he uses it in his
defense against Quine’s arguments. My main concern, however, is to take some
critical measure of the way in which White ‘cashes in’ his central claim,
namely, that "philosophy of culture is philosophy enough," and the
fruitfulness that an analysis such as his can be brought to bear in the context
of contemporary philosophy and discussions of culture.  

(I) The Rationalistic Tradition or the "Fruitless
Quest for Certainty"

Since the primary target of his holistic
pragmatism is rationalism in its various forms –overt or covert,
half-hearted or full-fledged, partial or full-blown – it might help motivate
his discussion of the former to take a brief historical perspective.

White believes quite rightly, I think,
that much of the history of philosophy has been, in the words of Dewey, a
fruitless "quest for certainty" (x, 5, 52), and that Dewey himself,
like many other philosophers before and after, and well into the 20^th
century, have in fact contributed to that quest deliberately or unwittingly.

White shows that this was certainly
the case in earlier centuries with Descartes (3-4, 7, 24, 66, 70), Locke (22,
156-7), Hume (63-6), Kant (72-3, 174, 182), even Hegel (78, 87-8) and J. S.
Mill (72-3). Although White argues extensively and in an original way which may
in fact qualify as a revisionist reading that the case against Hume (contrary
to what commentators assume) may not be as straightforward as is commonly
assumed (see White, 2000 for details). In some sense, one could say
nevertheless that both Hume and Mill, to single them out, did not go far enough
in their rejection of rationalism. But these philosophers were not the only
ones who succumbed to "the siren song" of rationalism –half or
full-fledged. Others, who are not typically associated with rationalism given
their radically different approaches and avowed interest in various aspects of
culture, followed suit. These include: Feuerbach, Nietzsche, and Friedrich Engels,
to mention a few. (88).  

  In addition to these figures from
earlier centuries, there were a number of empirically- minded philosophers in
the early 20^th century who were, as White puts it, "part-time
rationalists." Pierre Duhem, for example, an early advocate of holism in
the philosophy of physics, whose name became subsequently associated with the
so-called "Duhemian conjunction (of hypotheses),."[2]
maintained nevertheless a sharp epistemic distinction between physical and
mathematical truth, and so, his philosophy retained vestiges of rationalism
(54-6). William James, once characterized approvingly by Russell (56-8), as a
proponent of holistic pragmatism, also maintained inconsistently with his
general stance a sharp distinction between truths "coerced by the ideal
order" as opposed to those "coerced by the sensible order"
(153-4). Bertrand Russell himself who was once an advocate of holistic
pragmatism would later on abandon it (57). As for John Dewey, he was arguably
the most anti-dualist philosopher of culture of the 20^th century. He
dealt not only with art, but with history, education, religion, law, politics,
and many other subjects. And though much of his thinking on these and other
matters was dominated by his antipathy for the rationalism and mind-body
dualism of Descartes, he did not fully escape from the influence of classical
rationalism, and occasionally lapsed into the mind-body dualism that he
elsewhere deplored (24) –as White shows in another demonstration of his
remarkable scholarship. In the end, Dewey also seemed to uphold a distinction
between two kinds of truth (ideational vs. existential) that smacked of a
rationalist residue (39-40, 53-4).          

What is ironic, as White remarks,
is that many of the "half-fledged rationalists" or "half-hearted
anti-rationalists" were also social scientists, psychologists, historians,
economists, or more generally humanists, who should have in fact rejected
rationalism root and branch –or might have been expected to do so. Most of
them were empirically-minded thinkers working under the varied banners of
romanticism, positivism, materialism, and pragmatism, yet they somehow remained
under the grip of a pure, non-empirical reason.

So why then, one may ask, did it
take so long for 20^th century philosophers to escape this grip and
stop being seduced by the "siren song" of rationalism? And what
impeded "the emergence of a thoroughgoing holistic pragmatism"?
According to Morton White, one factor was certainly the wide (explicit or
tacit) acceptance of Cartesian rationalism and half-rationalism, and yet
another one was the predominance of views on a priori knowledge held by
analytic philosophers such as Bertrand Russell, G.E. Moore, C.I. Lewis, and
Rudolf Carnap. We should not forget that all of these distinguished and very
influential philosophers accepted some version or other of the
analytic-synthetic distinction — though admittedly, as White points out, Moore
expressed doubts about its clarity toward the end of his life" (5).

What about Wittgenstein? How should
we assess his impact in this regard? If one could characterize two major errors
from which White had to recover, so to speak, in order to apprehend clearly the
viability of holistic pragmatism and its implications for a broadly construed
philosophy of culture, they are: ‘Error #1’ Wittgenstein’s view in the Tractatus,
according to which "psychology is no more closely related to
philosophy than any other natural science" and that "the statements
of philosophy are (in fact) senseless" (xi, 70). And ‘Error #2’: Quine’s
view that "philosophy of science is philosophy enough." As for the
late Wittgenstein of the Philosophical Investigations, White seems to
have an overall positive assessment despite a critical qualification. According
to his understanding of Wittgenstein’s later views, it would seem that he
"encouraged an expansive view of philosophy as the philosophy of culture
as well as holistic pragmatism." But then "he also seemed to hold
that some statements are factual whereas others are accepted merely on the
basis of grammar." Did Wittgenstein actually accept a sharp dichotomy
between analytic and synthetic truth? If he did, then, White would have to
conclude that his philosophy contained a vestige of rationalism. But, in the
final analysis, he prefers to think that "he was more of an ally of
holistic pragmatism than he is often made out to be," especially, he adds,
because "he encouraged philosophers to describe the many uses of
language" in various areas of culture (63).         

(II) Holistic Pragmatism –Or, How Quine Got Hoisted with
His Own Petard?

It is befitting at this stage to
engage the discussion of the doctrine of holistic pragmatism –as an attempt to
radically put in question the analytic-synthetic distinction which was so
central to the logical positivists’ program (60).

Holistic pragmatism basically
rejects the Cartesian conception of philosophy and objects fundamentally to the
view that no mathematical or logical principles can be abandoned in the face of
"a recalcitrant experience," to use Quine’s expression. Furthermore,
it holds that if a statement reporting an experience is rejected, the whole
conjunction that logically implies it may be rejected; if a prediction of
experience turns out to be false, at least one of the components of the whole
conjunction that implies it may be rejected, and that component may even be a
logical statement –unless that logical statement is itself involved in using
the holistic pragmatic method of testing. [More on this in section IV].[3]       

Let’s consider now Quine’s
formulation of the doctrine as it is laid out in his 1951 paper. He writes: "Each
man is given a scientific heritage plus a continuing barrage of sensory
stimulation; and the considerations which guide him in warping his scientific
heritage to fit his continuing sensory promptings are, where rational,
pragmatic." (1, 1953: 46). According to White, this formulation,
though concise is in fact "pregnant with meaning." It is significant
for the following four reasons: (i) Being about the behavior of human beings
and their heritage, it is about a cultural phenomenon. (ii) Since a scientific
heritage is regarded as a conjunction of many beliefs rather than as one
(singular and non-conjunctive) belief, it is underwritten by a holistic view.
(iii) Its reference to a barrage of sensory stimulation or a flux of
experiences makes it an empiricist statement. And finally, (iv) its reference
to a pragmatic warping of a scientific heritage to fit sensory promptings shows
that it is obviously situated within the tradition of pragmatism (67).

Holistic pragmatism stipulates that
the warpings that scientists or any other inquirers (in any other field) engage
in must be done with great concern for the elegance and simplicity of
the theory they ultimately adopt, and with the intention of warping the
heritage conservatively, or by engaging in minimum modification (James)
or mutilation (Quine) of it (22). It is here useful, I believe, to take
stock of the brand of holism characteristic of James’ pragmatism which has
unquestionably influenced Quine’s thinking on this subject.[4]
It comes out clearly when he considers the question of how we test our beliefs,
or as Quine would put it, how the configuration and reconfiguration of our
"web of beliefs’ take place.[5] 

Holistic pragmatism must then be viewed,
as we have already established above, in direct opposition to rationalism, in
that the latter holds that we (can) have knowledge that is not tested by
experience, This opposition is illustrated in the attack that Tarksi, Quine,
Goodman and White himself had mounted in the 50s and 60s on the logical
positivists’ distinction between analytic and synthetic statements. The latter,
as we may recall, claimed that all truths of logic are analytic because they
are true by virtue of the meanings of their terms and therefore not tested by
experience. In contrast, holistic philosophers argue that because a scientific
theory is a conjunction of logical statements and statements of natural
science, a scientist’s sensory experience may lead her to reject even a logical
component of that conjunction in an effort to make the scientific theory fit
those sensory promptings. For this reason, among others, holistic pragmatists
reject the analytic-synthetic distinction as unclear, obscure and untenable. 
Finally, they argue that statements of metaphysics or ontology are also
conjuncts of a holistically conceived scientific theory that is pragmatically
warped to fit sensory experience.

White makes it clear that he agrees
with most of Quine’s characterization of the way in which natural scientists
warp their heritage, but he points out that it is his restrictive and selective
focus that he finds problematic and objectionable. In particular, he disagrees
with Quine’s arguments to keep science and the philosophy of science on a pedestal
and separate from other human endeavors, and thereby blocking the path toward a
broadly and more democratically construed approach to culture and the
philosophy of culture.  He writes: "What separates Quine and me on this
issue is not his behaviorism but his selective behaviorism, which is motivated
by his initial philosophical inclination to regard knowledge more narrowly than
I do and which impels him to build epistemic walls between science and ethics
that I decline to build or buttress" (167). And he adds, quite
significantly and decisively, I believe, that it has sometimes occurred to him
that if Quine were to discover that a proposed criterion for being cognitive did
in fact apply to ethical statements, he might count that as an argument against
the criterion itself. Whereas he would be inclined to say that a criterion for
being cognitive which leads to the conclusion that ethical statements are not
cognitive is defective for that very reason.  After all, he points out, most of
us say that we believe, and some of us say that we know, that ethical
statements are true. This is one of the reasons, he claims, why he has argued
that they should be accepted as elements of a Duhemian conjunction (of beliefs)
which is anchored in sensory experience and emotional experience, and
that in ethics, we use a Duhemian conjunction to work out a manageable
structure into the flux of sensations and feelings of moral obligations,
whereas in science, we use a Duhemian conjunction to work out a manageable
structure into the flux of sensory experiences. (6, 76, 168).           

In order to make his case, White
often turns Quine’s own arguments against him –in an effort, so to speak, to
hoist him with his own petard. Thus, though he adopts Quine’s holism, he argues
in contrast for a non-reductive holism (157). While Quine has questioned
against the positivists the epistemic separation between science and ontology,
White takes a similar path, but this time, in order to undermine Quine’s
separation of science from ethics. He does not share his inclination to
distinguish between the cognitive and the moral.

He calls into question two of
Quine’s claims: (1) We can judge the morality of an act only on the basis of
our moral principles themselves. (2) A coherence theory of truth is the lot of
ethics –while, of course, the correspondence theory of truth is naturally the
lot of natural science. White rejects (1), because, in his mind, it lends
support to the view that our ethical principles are somehow self-evident
guarantors of singular moral judgments with no anchor in our feelings. He
prefers to anchor a conjunction of moral and descriptive beliefs in a
combination of sentences with varying degrees of observationality. He rejects
(2) because, in his view, experience includes feelings of moral obligation as
well as sensory experiences.  For White, our heritage contains not only beliefs
of logic and natural science, but moral beliefs as well –since, as he puts it,
"a moral judge tries to organize a flux consisting of feelings of moral
obligation as well as of sensory experiences" (3, 76). In
addition to "observation-sentences" (with varying degrees of observationality),
White wishes to countenance "feeling-sentences" (with varying degrees
of normativity). This in effect serves indirectly to underwrite his
thoroughgoing "radical empiricism," while at the same time avoiding
the "scientism" of Quine’s view. 

The distinction that Quine wanted
to establish and maintain between science and ethics is in
White’s view untenable. The kind of warping of our scientific heritage that a
scientist engages in can also take place in ethics as well as in other areas.
As a "methodological monist," as he occasionally calls himself, and a
consistent proponent of holistic pragmatism, White believes that we test both
our physical and moral beliefs by checking our so-called "Duhemian
conjunctions" against a pool of experiences –to be sure, differently
constituted kinds of experiences, but experiences nevertheless: in the former
case a pool consisting wholly of sensory experiences, and in the latter case a
pool composed of both sensory experiences and feelings of obligations (169).
Though we may treat some beliefs with great respect or conservatively, and we
often do, this is no guarantee that we will always respect them or kindred
beliefs, when trouble arises in a system or web in which they play a part. The
detailed arguments that he articulates and levels rigorously against Quine are,
in my view, correct and rather convincing (155-170).  In the final analysis,
White gives us good reasons to reject the restrictive position that Quine
defends, namely, once again, that "philosophy of science is philosophy
enough." This is arguably, as he puts it, a remnant of the logical
positivism against which Quine reacted –but apparently insufficiently (3).

(III) Can Holistic Pragmatism be Justified? –Without
Self-Serving Loopholes

One final set of questions must be
addressed before drawing this discussion to a close. How can holistic
pragmatism be ultimately justified?  Is it just an empirical description
(with a certain degree of generality) of what scientists, moralists or any
other inquirers engage in, or is it a rule with a certain prescriptive
and normative power?  In either case, is it such that one can be prompted to
revise or reject it on the basis of a required warping of our heritage to fit
with our continuing sensory promptings, to accommodate new facts, new
realizations, new moral or scientific beliefs, or is it such that we must seek
to preserve it at all costs, and should not discard it lightly? And last but
not least, isn’t holistic pragmatism ultimately compelled to assume a
questionable distinction of the kind that White sought to undermine throughout
his discussion?  E.g. a priori vs. a posteriori, or analytic vs.
synthetic?  To his credit, White takes up these questions and attempts in a
final chapter to answer them. 

White argues, in reply, that holistic pragmatist can
and should say that "some logical principles are immune to
rejection by experience –namely, those involved in his hypothetico-deductive
method of testing–and that the doctrine of holistic pragmatism is also immune
to quick and easy rejection by experience because he
resolves to hold on to it (179; see section II). What this implies under
White’s analysis is this: the Duhemian conjunction or scientific heritage of
each scientist or empirically-minded inquirer contains two kinds of statements,
those that they resolve to immunize against easy refutation by experience and
those that they do not immunize in such a manner. For White, as we have seen
earlier, the heritage of a holistic pragmatist is rather heterogeneous in
composition; it may include logical, epistemological, physical or even moral
statements. A holistic pragmatist may begin (as a descriptive epistemologist) by
making an empirical statement about the behavior of scientists, in which
case he is merely describing the actual practices by which they support and
test their beliefs, but he may later on (as a normative epistemologist) issue a
rule, according to which no experience may constitute sufficient ground for
rejecting holistic pragmatism itself. And in so doing, he would take on a
different role, akin in some sense to that of the legislator who transforms a
customary practice into law. By thus transforming his description of how
scientists do support and test their beliefs into a prescription (a rule
or convention) of how they should do so, White argues, a holistic
pragmatist may protect his doctrine from refutation by a skeptic or critic who
considers it merely as an empirical, descriptive hypothesis.

The advantage gained from regarding
holistic pragmatism as a rule is that it enables us to make sense of
epistemology as a normative discipline, in addition to being a descriptive
endeavor. But to say so however, and White stresses this crucial point, does
not entail that it is immutable. In fact, consistently with the central tenets
of holistic pragmatism, it must now be clear that nothing is in fact considered
to be immutable, and nothing is immune or immunized once and for all and
absolutely from possible revision or rejection. All beliefs are subject to
possible revisions and eventual rejection. However some beliefs may be more
immunized than others, relatively speaking. Some may even be pinned down, while
others are unpinned. And so, to say that holistic pragmatism is a rule suggests
that it is for the time being pinned down for all practical and theoretical
purposes, and that, as such, it is not to be cast off lightly or discarded
easily. As White puts it: "…the principle of holistic pragmatism is one
that a holistic pragmatist does not lightly surrender" (181-2). Elsewhere,
he also states: "In my view, the principle of holistic pragmatism resists
change in the highest degree, and that is why we resolve to hold on to it"
(183; see also section II).  White goes on to stress again and again, in so
many different ways, that resolving to accepting and holding on to holistic
pragmatism does not mean that it can never be altered or surrendered. For,
"what is once pinned down does not have to be always pinned down." It
means however that in order to warrant and effectuate either of those changes a
very powerful argument is required. 

By thus distinguishing between an
empirical description and a rule, as White does, isn’t he in the end committing
in turn the cardinal "sin of epistemic dualism" that he has so
vehemently sought to expiate from the work of other philosophers? Isn’t such a
distinction itself as problematic and object

Categories: Philosophical