Synopsis
IDEALISTIC LOGIC A STUDY OF ITS AIM, METHOD AND ACHIEVEMENT BY C. R. MORRIS, M. A. FELLOW, TUTOR AVD OWETT LECTURFR IN PHILOSOPHY BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD MACMILLAN AiND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTINS STREET, LONDON COPYRIGHT PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN PREFACE THIS study has been developed out of lectures de livered in the course of the last five years under the terms of my appointment as Jowett Lecturer in Philo sophy at Balliol. It does not attempt to provide an in troduction to the logic of the Idealists, in the sense of giving an easily intelligible exposition of the doctrines of that logic as they are propounded by the Idealistic writers themselves. From the outset I have approached the matter from a critical standpoint, seeking to dis cover for myself what is in the last resort the essential logical position of modern Idealism, to estimate how far the implications of that position have been fully worked out, and finally to judge of the philosophical value of the Idealistic logic generally. I have through out been influenced by the conviction that the broad issues in this enquiry are best seen in proportion by reflecting on the debt which any Idealistic Logic must owe to Kant. He, though his arguments are too sweep ing in character and his conclusions, for all his native caution, too unreservedly stated and too easily arrived at, was in a position and his Critique of Pure Reason forces the reader into a position to see the issues broadly and as a whole. The Idealists, while they have rarely, if at all, in my view, passed outside the terms of reference set for logic by Kant, or added sub stantially to the germinal ideas given by him, have not unnaturally shown a tendency to lose sight of the wood in giving necessary attention to the trees. vi PREFACE In working out my argument I have concentrated attention primarily on an attempt to make the several logical positions which I have set against one another as clear and well-defined as possible. To that end I have thought it better quite frankly to take a high line in dealing with the philosophies concerned. I have not scrupled to use the terms the Traditional logic and the Idealistic logic quite freely, without necessarily having in mind at the given moment any particular utterance or even, sometimes, any particular thinker and no attempt has been made by quotation and refer ence to give an appearance of a kind of scholarship which it is no part of the purpose of this study to claim. The exposition of the essentials of a philo sophical position, while it requires a knowledge of the relevant writings, also demands judgment in the ex pounder, especially when those doctrines are being exhibited from a special and independent point of view and no wealth of documentation can obviate that need, though it may conceal it. No doubt it is a weakness, but if in this study I had turned aside to justify every attribution of doctrine, I could not have kept my line of argument clear. The main theses about the essential principles of the Traditional and Ideal istic logics, though they may appear unorthodox at first sight, tend, I hope, to justify themselves as their implications become clearer in the course of the argu ment. My conclusions about the Idealistic logic are based primarily on reflection on the writings of Brad ley and of Professor Joachim. As regards Kant, experi ence certainly does not suggest that quotation is of much value in itself as a support for a particular inter pretation of his thought. In the case of Cook Wilson, I have been forced to ask the reader to pay close atten PREFACE vii tion here and there to particular statements but this is because it is essential to his position to criticise other views by pressing their particular statements in his own way, and because he wrote his own pages in full anticipation that this method of interpretation, which he thought the only sound one, would be applied to his own writings...
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