A Short History of Modern Philosophy: From Descartes to Wittgenstein

by Roger Scruton

  Wittgenstein accompanies this argument with an acute description, from the third-person point of view, of many complex mental phenomena—in particular those of perception, intention, expectation and desire. His arguments, as he acknowledges, refute, if successful, the possibility of a ‘pure phenomenology’, since they have the implication that nothing about the essence of the mental (or about the essence of anything) can be learned from the study (in Cartesian isolation) of the first person alone. The ‘immediacy’ of the first-person case is an index only of its shallowness. It is true that I know my own mental states without observing my behaviour; but this is not because I am observing something else. It is simply an illusion, thrown up by self-consciousness, that the necessary authority that accompanies the public usage of ‘I’, is an authority about some matter of which only the ‘I’ has knowledge.

  The priority of the third person

  Despite this rejection of the ‘method’ of phenomenology, however, Wittgenstein showed himself sympathetic to an ambition which had become—through a series of historical accidents—allied to it. Thinkers like the Kantian Dilthey (see p. 255) had sought for the foundations of a peculiarly ‘human’ understanding, according to which the world would be seen, not scientifically, but under the aspect of ‘meaning’. Wittgenstein, in common with some phenomenologists, such as Merleau-Ponty and Sartre, argued that we perceive and understand human behaviour in a manner different from that in which we perceive and understand the natural world. We explain human behaviour by giving reasons, not causes. We address ourselves to our future by making decisions, not predictions. We understand the past and present of mankind through our aims, emotions and activity, and not through predictive theories. All these distinctions seem to create the idea, if not of a specifically human world, at least of a specifically human way of seeing things. Much of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy is devoted to describing and analysing the characteristics of human understanding, and demolishing what he thought to be the vulgar illusion that science could generate a description of all those things with which our humanity (or to put it more philosophically, our existence as rational agents) is mingled. He defends the positions not only that our knowledge of our own minds presupposes the knowledge of the minds of others, but also that as the phenomenologist Max Scheler (1874-1928) put it—‘our conviction of the existence of other minds is earlier and deeper than our belief in the existence of nature’. In other words, despite the attack on the method and metaphysics of phenomenology, Wittgenstein shares with the phenomenologists the sense that there is a mystery in human things that will not yield to scientific investigation. This mystery is dispelled not by explanation, but only by careful philosophical description of the ‘given’. The difference is that, for Wittgenstein, what is ‘given’ is not the contents of immediate experience, but the forms of life which make experience possible.

  The demolition of the first-person illusion has two consequences. First, we cannot begin our enquiries from the first-person case and think that it gives us a paradigm of certainty. For, taken in isolation, it gives us nothing at all. Secondly, while the distinction between being and seeming does not exist for me when I contemplate my own sensations, this is only because I speak a public language which determines this peculiar property of firstperson knowledge. The collapse of being and seeming into each other, as in first-person awareness, is a ‘degenerate’ case. I can know, therefore, that if this collapse is possible, it is because there are people in the world besides myself, and because I have a nature and form of life in common with them. I do indeed inhabit an objective world, a world where things are or can be other than they seem. So, in a standing way, the argument of Kant’s Transcendental Deduction is found. The precondition of self-knowledge (of the Transcendental Unity of Apperception) is, after all, the knowledge of others, and of the objective world which contains them.

  Much has changed in philosophy since Wittgenstein produced his arguments. One thing is certain, however. The assumption that there is first-person certainty, which provides a starting-point for philosophical enquiry, this assumption which led to the rationalism of Descartes and to the empiricism of Hume, to so much of modern epistemology and so much of modern metaphysics, has been finally removed from the centre of philosophy. The ambition of Kant and Hegel, to achieve a philosophy which removes the ‘self’ from the beginning of knowledge so as to return it in an enriched and completed form at the end, has perhaps now been fulfilled.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  The purpose of this bibliography is to direct the reader towards reliable English-language versions of the more important texts of the philosophers discussed, and to provide a brief review of the available commentaries.

  The study of the history of philosophy has only recently acquired a firm place on the curriculum of universities in the English-speaking world. Nevertheless, the long-delayed discovery of this fertile territory has in recent years led to an explosion of publications, which it would be a life's work to summarise. Particularly influential at the scholarly level have been the volumes published by Routledge, in the series edited by Ted Honderich entitled 'The Arguments of the Philosophers'. Oxford University Press's 'Past Masters' series contains many useful guides for the less specialised reader. It remains true, nevertheless, that the original texts, properly translated, are the surest guides to the thought of those who wrote them.

  General

  The most comprehensive history of philosophy in English remains Frederick Copleston's History of Philosophy 12 vols, London, 1950 onwards.

  Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy (London, 1944) is amusing, but suffers from defects that make it inadequate as a supplement to the present volume. First, it deals largely with ancient philosophy, and is curt and selective in its treatment of the post-Cartesian tradition. Secondly, it is dismissive towards all those philosophers with whom Russell felt no personal affinity. Thirdly, it shows no understanding of kant and postkantian idealism. It is for all that, a classic of wit, elegance and resolute idiosyncrasy. Readers seeking a reliable, lengthy exposition of the subject might be better advised to try D.J.O'Connor (ed.), 4 Critical History of Western Philosophy, London, 1964, a book which suffers, however, from being written by many different hands.

  J. Passmore's 100 Years of Philosophy, London, 1957, concerning the period from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, is comprehensive and interesting.

  1 History of philosophy and history of ideas

  The literature on modern philosophy is vast. In Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey, London, 1994, I have tried to review the entire subject as it is now conceived in the Anglo-American tradition, and to provide an effective guide to the literature. Those who prefer a shorter introduction (and who can blame them?) should read Bertrand Russell's enduring classic, The Problems of Philosophy, London, 1912. A sense of the subject can also be gained from reading Plato's shorter dialogues, in particular the Gorgias and Theaetetus.

  Anthony Flew (ed.), 4 Dictionary of Philosophy, London, 1979, is one of the best of the many available short guides to the language of modern philosophy, while the much longer Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul S. Edwards, London and New York, 1967, has retained its authoritative lead over all rival compendia. Simon Blackburn's Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford, 1995, seems, on first reading, exemplary.

  2 The rise of modern philosophy

  Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy is available in the Loeb Classical Library (bilingual, Latin and English), ed. H.F.Stewart and E.K.Rand, London and New York, 1918. There is an interesting translation by Chaucer, entitled Boece.

  St Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica has been re-issued, in a scholarly bilingual edition, by Blackfriars in association with Eyre & Spottiswoode and McGraw-Hill, London and New York. The best short commentary is Anthony Kenny's Aquinas, in the Past Masters series, ed. Keith Thomas, Oxford, 1980.

  For the other figures mentioned, see FC.Copleston, Medieval Philosophy London, 1952. The pri
ncipal texts can be found in A.Hyman and J.J.Walsh (eds), Philosophy in the Middle Ages, New York, Evanston and London, 1967, which contains extracts from Aquinas as well as from the Arabic, Jewish and Christian philosophers of the pre-Thomist period.

  Bacon's philosophical writings are most accessibly presented in FH. Anderson (ed.), The New Organon and Related Writings, New York, 1960.

  3 Descartes

  The standard edition of Descartes' works is Œuvres de Descartes, 12 vols plus supplement, edited by Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, and published in Paris by Leopold Cerf, 1897-1913. English editions often quote the page numbering of this edition in the margins of the translated text.

  The following English editions are acceptable: The Philosophical Works of Descartes, translated by E.S.Haldane and G.R.T.Ross, 2 vols, Cambridge, 1911-12, paperback edition New York, 1955. Descartes: Philosophical Writings, a selection translated and edited by Elizabeth Anscombe and P.T.Geach, Sunbury-on-Thames, 1954, revised edition 1970. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, translated and edited by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff and Dugald Murdoch, 2 vols, Cambridge, 1985. This will no doubt become the standard English edition and should be read in preference to the above if possible. There is also a selection from the same edition, published in one volume, Cambridge, 1988. This contains everything that a newcomer to Descartes will need and has been brilliantly edited to meet the demands of today's student.

  Commentaries are legion, but the following have had considerable impact on recent scholarship: Anthony Kenny, Descartes: 4 Study of his Philosophy, New York, 1968; Bernard Williams, Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry, an imaginative and insightful work, which conveys an unmatched sense of the intellectual importance of Descartes and his project; Margaret Wilson, Descartes, London, 1983, a thorough and careful guide to the argument. For the immediate background to Descartes' thought, see R.H.Popkin, The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Descartes, New York, 1968. There is also a Cambridge Companion to Descartes, edited by John Cottingham, Cambridge, 1992, which contains interesting articles on all aspects of Descartes' philosophy.

  4 The Cartesian revolution

  Father Mersenne's collection of objections to Descartes, and Descartes' replies, can be found in E.S.Haldane and G.R.T.Ross (eds), The Philosophical Works of Descartes, 2 vols, 1911-12, paperback edition New York, 1955, and also in the edition of Descartes' philosophical writings, edited by J.Cottingham et al., Cambridge, 1985. The Port-Royal logic is available in a recent edition, tr. James Dickoff and Patricia James as The Art of Thinking, Indianapolis and New York, 1964. For Petrus Ramus, see W. and M.Kneale, The Development of Logic, Oxford, 1962, pp. 301f. Pascal's Pensées are available in translations by Martin Turnell, London, 1962, and W.F.Trotter, New York, 1958, with an introduction by T.S. Eliot. Nicolas Malebranche's Dialogues on Metaphysics and Religion are available in a translation by Morris Ginsberg, London, 1923.

  For the history of ideas covering the period from the Cartesians to the philosophes, see Paul Hazard, The European Mind: 1680-1715, tr. J.L.May, reissued London, 1973. For Diderot, Voltaire, d'Alembert and the philosophes in general, see Diderot, Rameau's Nephew and Other Works, tr. Barzun and Bowen, New York, 1956; Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, 2 vols, tr. Gray, New York, 1963 and Norman L.Torrey, The Spirit of Voltaire, Oxford, 1962. There is also-a useful article on the movement in D.J.O'Connor (ed.), 4 Critical History of Western Philosophy, London, 1964, by E.A.Gellner, entitled 'French Eighteenth Century Materialism'.

  5 Spinoza

  The standard edition of the works of Spinoza in the original Latin is that edited by C.Gebhardt, Spinoza Opera, 4 vols, Heidelberg, 1925.

  There are several translations of the major metaphysical works available. Undeniably the best, in what will surely become the standard English-language edition of Spinoza, is that by Edwin Curley: The Collected Works of Spinoza, vol. 1, Princeton, 1985. (Vol. 2, containing the political works and the remainder of Spinoza's correspondence, has yet to appear.) This magisterial edition, containing all that the student needs, is complete with glossary, index and editorial apparatus, and makes the works fully access

  Unfortunately Curley's edition is expensive and not very easy to obtain. The cheap and acceptable alternative is the translation of the Ethics by Samuel Shirley, edited with a useful and lively introduction by Seymour Feldman, and published by the Hackett Publishing Co., Indianapolis, 1992. This also contains the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, and a selection from the correspondence, both of which are of considerable importance.

  The complete correspondence of Spinoza is obtainable in a translation edited by A.Wolf, London 1928, reissued 1962. The correspondence relating to the metaphysical works also occurs in Curley, where it is illuminatingly introduced by the translator. The correspondence should not be neglected, since it contains Spinoza's own attempts to make his system clear and accessible to puzzled or sceptical readers.

  Among commentaries, the following might prove useful: R.Scruton, Spinoza, Oxford, 1986: a very short introduction, which is intended as a map of the territory; Stuart Hampshire, Spinoza, Harmondsworth, 1951, reprinted 1981: a path-breaking book, though now somewhat dated; Jonathan Bennett, A Study of Spinoza's Ethics, Cambridge, 1984: a difficult and strenuous book, which is relentlessly combative towards its subject matter; Edwin Curley, Behind the Geometrical Method: A Reading of Spinoza's Ethics, Princeton, 1988: a reworking of a previous commentary, intended in part as a response to Bennett—perhaps the most readable and accessible of the shorter commentaries; Henry Allison, Benedict de Spinoza: An Introduction, New Haven, 1987: also very accessible, and frequently illuminating.

  Among the collections of articles now available, that edited by S.Paul Kashap, entitled Studies in Spinoza: Critical and Interpretive Essays, Los Angeles, 1972, is perhaps the most useful. It contains the important essay 'Spinoza and the Idea of Freedom', by Stuart Hampshire, and an essay by G.H.R.Parkinson, which is an adequate substitute for the same author's Spinoza's Theory of Knowledge, Oxford, 1954. The interested student would also gain much from the following two articles: Thomas Carson Mark, 'The Spinozistic Attributes', Philosophia 7, 1977; and Ralph Walker, 'Spinoza and the Coherence Theory of Truth', Mind 94, 1985.

  6 Leibniz

  Leibniz's works (most of them unpublished in his lifetime) are being issued in scholarly editions by the German Academy of Sciences, descendant of the Prussian Academy which Leibniz himself founded. Moving with exemplary slowness (due in part to the polit C.I.Gerhardt, published between 1875 and 1890. As a result, the Gerhardt edition is still widely referred to as the leading text.

  There is also a famous collection of Leibniz's unpublished writings put together by the French mathematician Louis Couturat, Opuscules et fragments inédits de Leibniz, Paris, 1903. This was highly influential in emphasising the role that logical theory played in shaping Leibniz's metaphysics.

  There have been two widely used English-language editions of the more important works: Leroy E.Loemker (ed.), Leibniz: Philosophical Papers and Letters, 2nd edition, Dordrecht, 1969; Philip PWiener (ed.), Leibniz Selections, New York, 2nd edn, 1986. (The first edition of this work is unreliable.)

  More useful than either of those to the student, however, is: G.W.Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, tr. and ed. Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber, Indianapolis and Cambridge, 1989. This contains the crucial metaphysical works, in lucid and elegant translations.

  Among other important works, the following are well worth reading: The Leibniz-Arnauld Correspondence, tr. H.T.Mason, Manchester, 1967; The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, tr. Samuel Clarke, ed. H.G.Alexander, Manchester, 1956; G.W.Leibniz, New Essays on Human Understanding, abridged, translated and edited by Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett, Cambridge, 1982. This last is an extremely useful and inexpensive book, with a marvellously succinct introduction containing a brief biography of Leibniz, a summary of several of his important theories, and a map of the New Essays. It has an up-to-date and lucid bibliography.


  Commentaries include the following: G.H.R.Parkinson, Logic and Reality in Leibniz's Metaphysics, Oxford, 1965: dry, scholarly and reliable; Benson Mates, The Philosophy of Leibniz: Logic and Language, Oxford, 1986: accessible, interesting, occasionally misleading; C.D.Broad, Leibniz: An Introduction, Cambridge, 1975: posthumously published lectures— thorough, comprehensive, and a trifle out of date; Hide Ishiguro, Leibniz's Philosophy of Logic and Language, London, 1972: difficult, tortuous, but worth the effort. There is also a famous book by Bertrand Russell, A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz, 2nd edn, London, 1937. This tried to show that Leibniz's metaphysics (which Russell did not admire) was motivated by his logic (which he did). The interpretation offered was very influential, though now largely rejected.

  Among collections of articles, the following can be recommended: Michael Hooker (ed.), Leibniz: Critical and Interpretative Essays, Minneapolis, 1983; R.S.Woolhouse (ed.), Leibniz: Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science, Oxford, 1981: contains a good, if undiscriminating, bibliography; Nicholas Jolley (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Leibniz, Cambridge, 1994.

  For the place of both Spinoza and Leibniz in the history of ideas, see A. Lovejoy's classic study, The Great Chain of Being, London, 1936.

  7 Locke and Berkeley

  Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. with an introduction by Michael Oakeshott, Oxford, 1947.

  Editions of Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding are of varying quality; by far the best is that edited by Peter H.Nidditch, Oxford, 1975. This contains a useful foreword by the editor.

  Because the Essay is so diffuse and repetitious, various abridgements have been attempted, among which the most popular has been that by A.S. Pringle-Pattison, Oxford, 1924.