MS 475-476 (1903) - Lowell Lecture VIII

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How to Theorize

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at dinnertime today. I have for many years been an adherent of what is technically called Common Sense in philosophy, myself; and do not think that my Tychistic opinions conflict with that position; but I nevertheless think that such theories as that of Comte and Poincaré about verifiable hypotheses frequently deserve the most serious consideration; and the examination of them is never lost time; for it brings lessons not otherwise so easily learned. Of course with memory would have to go all opinions about everything not at this moment before our senses. You must not believe that you hear me speaking to you, but only that you hear

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certain sounds while you see before you a spot of black, white, and flesh color; and those sounds somehow seem to suggest certain ideas which you must not connect at all with the black and white spot. A man would have to devote years to training his mind to such habits of thought, and even then, it is doubtful whether it would be possible. And what would be gained? If it would alter our beliefs as to what our sensuous experience is going to be, it would certainly be a change for the worse, since we do not find ourselves disappointed in any expectations due to common sense beliefs. If on the other hand

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it would not make any such difference, as I suppose it would not, why not allow us the harmless convenience of believing in these fictions, if they be fictions? Decidedly we must be allowed these ideas, if only as cement for the matter of our sensations. At the same time, I protest that such permission would not be at all enough. Comte, Poincaré, and Carl Pearson, take what they consider to be the first impressions of sense, but which are really nothing of the sort, but are percepts that are products of psychical operations, and they separate these from all the intellectual part of our knowledge, and arbitrarily call the first real and the second fictions. These two words real and fictive bear no significations

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whatever except as marks of good and bad. But the truth is that what they call bad or fictitious, or subjective, the intellectual part of our knowledge, comprises all that is valuable on its own account, while what they mark good, or real, or objective, is nothing but the pretty vessel that carries the precious thought.

I can excuse a person who has lost a dear companion and whose reason is in danger of giving way under the grief, for trying, on that account, to believe in a future life. I can more than excuse him because his usefulness is at stake. Although I myself would not adopt a hypothesis, and would not

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even take it on probation, simply because the idea was pleasing to me. Without judging others, I should feel, for my own part, that that would be a crime against the integrity of the reason that God has lent to me. But if I had the choice between two hypotheses, the one more ideal and the other more materialistic, I should prefer to take the ideal one upon probation, simply because ideas are fruitful of consequences, while mere sensations are not so; so that the idealistic hypothesis would be the more verifiable, that is to say, would predict more, and could be put the more thoroughly to the test.

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