The Concepts Of Philosophy

( Originally Published 1909 )

By Alexander Thomas Ormond. New York : The Macmillan Co.

To many of those who have been steeped in the minutioe of recent philosophical discussion, Prof. Ormond's book will appear refreshingly old fashioned old fashioned in its form and method, if not in its insight. The fact that nearly all of our current philosophical writers are academic teachers who must not trespass on their colleagues' fields, has caused the disappearance of the old idea of philosophy as a Weltanschauung or as the completed and criticised system of human knowledge. It is assuming more and more the humbler position of a particular discipline dealing with certain technical problems such as the nature of truth, the relation between ideas and reality, etc. To Prof. Ormond, however, philosophy is not one among a number of sciences, but rather the synthesis of metaphysics and all the special sciences with religion. Indeed it is the very specialization of the sciences, leading as it does to an "eclipse of faith in the unity of truth" and to a disintegration of the elements of culture, that calls for philosophy as a "discipline whose special business it shall be to investigate the grounds and principles of the whole body of truth with a view to its unity and meaning as a whole" (p. 3).

Prof. Ormond writes in a leisurely fashion, and his volume contains over seven hundred pages. It is divided into three parts, called respectively Analysis, Synthesis and Deductions. The first part is intended to establish the standpoint of meta-physics; viz., that of consciousness. The whole and part relation of mathematics proves itself inadequate as an ultimate explanation, and gives way to the category of ground and phenomena in physics. The latter in turn leads to the category of purpose, "a term which connects idea with interest and will, and through these with realizing efficacy" (p. 59). The second part of the book surveys, from this standpoint, the fields of physics, biology, psychology, sociology, ethics and religion, and attempts to build up the doctrine of an eternal consciousness as the ultimate principle of unification. The third part contains the applications of this view to the doctrines of nature, of God, of men, of human destiny, etc.

In the philosophy of religion which is thus developed, ethics does not play a very important rôle. It forms no part or stage of Prof. Ormond's dialectic; and the two chapters devoted to strictly ethical problems might have been omitted without materially affecting the main argument. Nevertheless these two chapters contain some very important discussions, and are typical of Prof. Ormond's method.

He begins by pointing out that the ethical is a form of the reflective social consciousness. As society develops, ideals be-come more definitely conceived and subjective selection assumes the more complex forms of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. These involve judgments of approbation and disapprobation. Ethical judgments are a species of the genus judgments of approbation and disapprobation. The differentia is to be found in the fact that the ethical i leal differs from other social ideals by its authoritativeness and by the fact that it imposes itself only through the assent of our own will (p. 341).

From this point of view ore discussed the three fundamental categories of ethics, viz., ought, right and good. Prof. Ormond accepts the Kantian analysis of the ethical judgment as unconditionally obligatory, and rejects the current evolutionist ex-planation which develops its imperative character out of various forms of objective control, such as the sanctions of the state, the force of public opinion, etc. It is undoubtedly true that objective controls tend to become also inner and subjective but this does not explain the categorical or unconditional character of the ethical judgment. In his own explanation Prof. Ormond starts out with the recognition that in its general form the sense of obligation is a late development of the moral consciousness. "Conscience must wait on a fully developed social consciousness." But even in the most undeveloped societies the pressure of the moral imperative shows itself in certain concrete situations. Instead, therefore, of giving us a deduction of obligation in general, Prof. Ormond takes two virtues, viz., justice and truthfulness, and attempts to derive their categorical character from the nature of the social consciousness itself. "We feel the obligation to be just because justice is an immediate implication of our social sense of community." The "equating social self" requires "that all units shall share equally in this common life and interest" (p. 351). Similarly truthfulness arises from the demand of the social consciousness that our legitimate expectations shall be fulfilled (ibid.).

The categories of right and good are concepts of the content of ethical obligation. "In its details obligation enjoins justice, truthfulness, honesty and the rest. But as a whole and in its unity it enjoins an ideal of action which, taken as a whole, embodies the conduct of an ideal self" (p. 354). The right is the codification of the kinds of conduct thus enjoined. The good, on the other hand, is a category of feeling; and its content may be summed up in one term, viz., happiness. The difficulty that happiness and misery in themselves are wholly non-ethical is met by identifying the ethical good with "the whole body of the desirable so far as it is not inconsistent with the law of righteousness" (p. 356).

After thus explaining the social roots of ethics Prof. Ormond turns to the ultra-social or transcendent springs. Although he accepts the Kantian account of the moral judgment, he rejects the Kantian explanation of it, viz., the distinction between the noumenal and the phenomenal self. Holding as he does that all ethical concepts "arise as functions of the developing sense of the community," he believes it impossible that they should ever be completely free from the taint of relativity. "In order that this relativity may be cured and our ethical concepts founded on a solid basis, . . . we need an appeal to some consciousness in which the social movement as a whole stands ideally realized, or at least a consciousness in which its movement as a whole is not determined by accident or blind fate" (p. 362). This kind of consciousness is, of course, found only in the God of theism. Prof. Ormond contends that the fundamental problems of ethics, e. g., that of freedom, cannot be solved without recourse to the God idea.

The science of ethics, according to Prof. Ormond, cannot be a natural science (i. e., one that explains phenomena by the principle of natural causation), because that would deny free-dom. He admits that conduct is influenced by biologic heredity and physical environment. Temperature, food, etc., do influence the will and the emotions. But when one resists the inclinations of self interest and refrains, for instance, from an advantageous lie, natural causation cannot be said to have been effective. Prof. Ormond feels so confident of his easy and complete victory over naturalism that it would be a pity to point out the glaring inadequacy of his argument. One may, however, point out that there are too many concessions to the enemy to justify his claim of having administered a Waterloo to naturalism.

While denying ethics to be a natural science he admits that morals are subject to evolution , and therefore come under the categories of variation, selection, etc. But these categories must be construed in terms of reflection and will, and not in terms of natural causation. Thus, while there is a law of social heredity, each generation handing over to the next its institutions, laws, etc., "the new generation chooses what shall be the effect of its social inheritance."

The metaphysical world presupposed by the field of ethics is admitted to be one of pluralism, for there is no duty that is not the duty of some individual. Moreover, these individuals are not isolated, but are related by their social nature. This pluralism, however, is soon declared to be insufficient, because the social consciousness is relative, and therefore fallible. Hence, we must assume some "divine intelligence in the world as the ground and guarantee of its moral order" (p. 389, cf. 395).

Prof. Ormond's general position may not unjustly be characterized as eclectic, with its basis in Scotch idealism. So far as his treatment of ethics is concerned it manifestly suffers from its complete subordination to metaphysical considerations, as, for instance, in his making the practical category of freedom entirely dependent on the metaphysical shibboleth of vera causa. In common with other theologians he also tends to conceive the field of ethics rather narrowly. This is shown in his treatment of sin, which he does not regard as an ethical category (cf. p. 543). One cannot, however, but entertain profound admiration for the doughty idealism that does not shrink from surveying the whole field of human knowledge and which boldly traces the all-comprehending ethical purpose which unifies the chaos of experience.

MORRIS R. COHEN.

New York