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Other documents randomly have
different content
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Elements of
metaphysics
 This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
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Title: Elements of metaphysics

Author: A. E. Taylor

Release date: October 15, 2023 [eBook #71885]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Methuen, 1903

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELEMENTS

OF METAPHYSICS ***
 Transcriber’s Note:
Footnotes have been collected at the end of each
chapter, and are linked for ease of reference.
Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been
corrected. Please see the transcriber’s note at the end of
this text for details regarding the handling of any textual
issues encountered during its preparation.
Any corrections are indicated as hyperlinks, which will
navigate the reader to the corresponding entry in the
corrections table in the note at the end of the text.

Elements of Metaphysics

A. E. TAYLOR
Late Professor of Moral Philosophy
in the University of Edinburgh

πατρὶς δὴ ἡμῖν ὅθενπερ ἤλθομεν καὶ πατὴρ ἐκεῖ

UNIVERSITY PAPERBACKS

METHUEN : LONDON

First published by Methuen & Co Ltd in 1903

Printed in Great Britain by
 Morrison & Gibb Ltd, Edinburgh
Catalogue No 2/6775/27

University Paperbacks are published

by METHUEN & CO LTD
36 Essex Street, Strand, London WC2
and BARNES & NOBLE INC
105 Fifth Avenue, New York 3

TO
F. H. BRADLEY
In heartfelt acknowledgment of all that
his example and his writings have been
to the men of my generation

Ante Ararim Parthus bibet, aut Germania Tigrim,

Quam nostro illius labatur pectore vultus.
 ELEMENTS
OF METAPHYSICS
 PREFACE

In acknowledging my indebtedness to recent writers for many of

the ideas contained in the following pages, I have in the first place to
express my deep and constant obligations to the various works of
Mr. F. H. Bradley. My chief debt to other recent English-speaking
philosophers is to Professor Royce and Professor Ward, and I am
perhaps scarcely less indebted to Professor Stout. My chief
obligations to Continental writers are to Avenarius and to Professor
Münsterberg. I trust, however, that there is not one of the authors
with whose views I have dealt in the course of my work from whom I
have not learned something. At the same time I ought perhaps to
say here once for all that I make no claim to represent the views of
any one author or school, and I shall not be surprised if the thinkers
to whom I owe most find themselves unable to endorse all that I
have written.
With respect to the references given at the end of the several
chapters, I may note that their aim is simply to afford the reader
some preliminary guidance in the further prosecution of his studies.
They make no pretence to completeness, and are by no means
exclusively drawn from writers who support my own conclusions.
One or two important works of which I should have otherwise been
glad to make extended use have appeared too recently for me to
avail myself of them. I may mention especially the late Professor
Adamson’s Lectures on the Development of Modern Philosophy,
Professor Ostwald’s Vorlesungen über Naturphilosophie, and Mr. B.
Russell’s Principles of Mathematics, vol. 1.
Finally, I have to express my gratitude to my friends Professor S.
Alexander and Mr. P. J. Hartog for their kindness in reading large
portions of my proofs and offering many valuable corrections and
suggestions.
1903

The sudden demand for a re-issue of this volume prevents my

making any alterations beyond the correction of a number of
misprints. Had the opportunity offered, I should have been glad,
while leaving the main argument essentially as it stands, to have
attempted certain improvements in details. I may mention in
particular, as the most important of the changes I could have wished
to make, that the treatment of the problem of infinite regress and of
the Kantian antinomies would have been remodelled, and I trust
improved, as a consequence of study of the works of Mr. Bertrand
Russell and M. Couturat.
I should like to take this opportunity of thanking all those who have
been kind enough to favour me with criticisms of the book.
 CONTENTS

BOOK I
GENERAL NOTIONS

CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM OF THE METAPHYSICIAN
PAGE
#§1. The generality and simplicity of the metaphysical 1
problem make it difficult to define the study. §2.
Problem is suggested by the presence of
contradictions in ordinary experience. §3.. By making
a distinction between reality and appearance the
sciences remove some of these contradictions, but
themselves lead to further difficulties of the same
sort; hence the need for systematic inquiry into the
meaning of the distinction between the real and the
apparent, and the general character of reality as
such. §4.. Metaphysics, as an inquiry into the
ultimate meaning of “reality,” is akin to poetry and
religion, but differs from them in its scientific
character, from the mathematical and experimental
sciences in its method, from common scepticism in
the critical nature of its methods as well as in its
positive purpose. §5.. The study is difficult (a)
because of the generality of its problems, (b) and
because we cannot employ diagrams or physical
experiments. §6.. The objection that Metaphysics is
an impossibility may be shown in all its forms to rest
 upon self-contradictory assumptions of a
metaphysical kind. §7.. The minor objections that, if
possible, the science is superfluous, or at least
stationary, may be met with equal ease. §8.
Metaphysics is partly akin to the mystical tendency,
but differs from mysticism in virtue of its positive
interest in the world of appearances, as well as by its
scientific method. §9.. It agrees with logic in the
generality of its scope, but differs in being concerned
with the real, whereas logic is primarily concerned
with the inferrible. §10. The problems of the so-called
Theory of Knowledge are really metaphysical.

CHAPTER II
THE METAPHYSICAL CRITERION AND THE METAPHYSICAL
METHOD

§ 1. In the principle that “Reality is not self-contradictory” 18

we have a universal and certain criterion of reality
which is not merely negative, but implies the positive
assertion that reality is a consistent system. § 2. The
validity of this criterion is not affected by the
suggestion that it may be merely a Logical Law; § 3.
Nor by the raising of doubt whether all our knowledge
is not merely “relative,” a doubt which is itself
meaningless. § 4. As to the material of the system, it
is experience or immediate psychical fact. § 5. It
must be actual experience, not mere “possibilities” of
experience; but actual experience must not be
identified with “sensation.” § 6. Nor must we assume
that experience consists of subjects and their states;
nor again, that it is a mere succession of “states of
consciousness.” § 7. The differentia of matter of
experience is its immediacy, i.e. its combination in a
single whole of the two aspects of existence and
content. §8. This union of existence and content is
 broken up in reflective knowledge or thought, but
may be restored at a higher level. § 9. Experience
further always appears to be implicitly complex in
respect of its content. § 10. An adequate
apprehension of reality would only be possible in the
form of a complete or “pure” experience, at once all-
inclusive, systematic, and direct. The problem of
Metaphysics is to 'ascertain what would be the
general or formal character of such an experience,
and how far the various provinces of our human
experience and knowledge approximate to it. The
knowledge Metaphysics can give us of the ultimate
nature of reality as it would be present in a complete
experience, though imperfect, is final as far as it
goes. § 11. As to the method of Metaphysics, it must
be analytical, critical, non-empirical, and non-
inductive. It may also be called a priori if we carefully
avoid confusing the a priori with the psychologically
primitive. Why our method cannot be the Hegelian
Dialectic

CHAPTER III
THE SUB-DIVISIONS OF METAPHYSICS

§ 1. The traditional sub-division of Metaphysics into

Ontology, Cosmology, Rational Psychology, common
to all the great modern constructive systems. § 2.
Precise sense in which we adopt these divisions for
the purposes of our own treatment of the subject. §
3. Relation of Cosmology and Rational Psychology to
the empirical sciences 42

BOOK II
ONTOLOGY—THE GENERAL STRUCTURE OF REALITY
 CHAPTER I
REALITY AND EXPERIENCE

§ 1. In a sense “reality” for each of us means that of 50

which he must take account if his special purposes
are to find fulfilment. § 2. But ultimately the world
must possess a structure of which all purposes, each
in its own way, must take account. This is the
“Ultimate Reality” or “Absolute” of Metaphysics. In
Metaphysics we regard it from the special standpoint
of the scientific intellect. There are other legitimate
attitudes towards it, e.g., that of practical religion. § 3.
The inseparability of reality from immediate
experience involves the recognition of it as
teleological and as uniquely individual. § 4. The
experience within which all reality falls cannot be my
own, nor yet the “collective” experience of the
aggregate of conscious beings. It must be an
individual experience which apprehends the totality
of existence as the harmonious embodiment of a
single “purpose.” The nearest analogue our own life
presents to such a type of experience is to be found
in the satisfied insight of personal love. § 5. The
experience of such an “Absolute” must not be
thought of as a mere reduplication of our own, or of
the scientific hypotheses by which we co-ordinate
facts for the purposes of inference. § 6. Our
conception is closely connected with that of Berkeley,
from which it differs by the stress it lays on the
purposive and selective aspect of experience. § 7.
Realism, both of the Agnostic and of the Dogmatic
type, is incompatible with the meaning we have been
led to attach to “reality.” But Agnosticism is justified in
insisting on the limitations of our knowledge of
Reality, and Dogmatic Realism in rejecting the
identification of Reality with experience as a merely
cognitive function of finite percipients. § 8.
 Subjectivism, according to which all that I know is
states of my own “consciousness,” is irreconcilable
with the admitted facts of life, and arises from the
psychological fallacy of “introjection”

CHAPTER II
THE SYSTEMATIC UNITY OF REALITY

§ 1. The problem whether Reality is ultimately One or 84

Many is inevitably suggested to us by the diverse
aspects of our own direct experience of the world.
The different theories may be classed, according to
their solution of this problem, as Monistic, Pluralistic,
and Monadistic. §2. Pluralism starts from the
presumed fact of the mutual independence of human
selves, and teaches that this independence of each
other belongs to all real beings. But (a) the
independence with which experience presents us is
never complete, nor the unity of the “selves” perfect.
(b) The theory is inconsistent with the systematic
character of all reality as presupposed in both
knowledge and action. § 3. Monadism again makes
the systematic unity of the real either an illusion or an
inexplicable accident. § 4. Reality, because
systematic, must be the expression of a single
principle in and through a multiplicity. The unity and
multiplicity must both be real, and each must
necessarily involve the other. § 5. If both are to be
equally real, the whole system must be a single
experience, and its constituents must also be
experiences. A perfect systematic whole can be
neither an aggregate, nor a mechanical whole of
parts, nor an organism. The whole must exist for the
parts, and they for it. § 6. This may also be
expressed by saying that Reality is a subject which is
the unity of subordinate subjects, or an individual of
 which the constituents are lesser individuals. § 7.
The nearest familiar analogue to such a systematic
whole would be the relation between our whole “self”
and the partial mental systems or lesser “selves.” §
8. The nearest historic parallel to this view is to be
found in Spinoza’s theory of the relation of the
human mind to the “infinite intellect of God”

CHAPTER III
REALITY AND ITS APPEARANCES—THE DEGREES OF
REALITY

§ 1. Reality being a single systematic whole, the nature of 104

its constituent elements is only finally intelligible in
the light of the whole system. Hence each of its
“appearances,” if considered as a whole in itself,
must be more or less contradictory. § 2. But some
“appearances” exhibit the structure of the whole
more adequately than others, and have therefore a
higher degree of reality. § 3. This conception of
degree of reality may be illustrated by comparison
with the successive orders of infinites and
infinitesimals in Mathematics. It would be the task of
a complete Philosophy to assign the contents of the
world to their proper place in the series of “orders” of
reality. § 4. In general any subordinate whole is real
in proportion as it is a self-contained whole. And it is
a self-contained whole in proportion as it is (a)
comprehensive, (b) systematic; that is, a thing is real
just so far as it is truly individual. § 5. The two criteria
of individuality, though ultimately coincident, tend in
particular cases to fall apart for our insight, owing to
the limitation of human knowledge. § 6. Ultimately
only the whole system of experience is completely
individual, all other individuality is approximate. § 7.
In other words, the whole system of experience is an
 infinite individual, all subordinate individuality is finite.
Comparison of t“his position with the doctrines of
Leibnitz. § 8. Recapitulatory statement of the relation
of Reality to its Appearances

CHAPTER IV
THE WORLD OF THINGS—(1) SUBSTANCE, QUALITY, AND
RELATION

§ 1. The natural or pre-scientific view of the world regards 120

it as a plurality of “things,” each possessing qualities,
standing in relation to others, and interacting with
them. § 2. Hence arise four problems: those of the
Unity of the Thing, of Substance and Quality, of
Relation, of Causality. § 3. No simple answer can be
given to the question, What is one thing? The Unity
of the Thing is one of teleological structure, and this
is a matter of degree, and also largely of our own
subjective point of view. § 4. Substance and Quality.
The identification of the substance of things with their
primary qualities, though useful in physical science,
is metaphysically unjustifiable. § 5. Substance as an
“unknowable substratum of qualities” adds nothing to
our understanding of their connection. § 6. The thing
cannot be a mere collection of qualities without
internal unity. § 7. The conception of a thing as the
law or mode of relation of its states useful but
metaphysically unsatisfactory. Ultimately the many
can be contained in the one only by “representation”;
the unity in things must be that of an individual
experience. § 8. Relation. We can neither reduce
qualities to relations nor relations to qualities. § 9.
Again, the attempt to conceive Reality as qualities in
relation leads to the indefinite regress. §10. We
cannot escape this difficulty by taking all relations as
“external.” And Professor Royce’s vindication of the
 indefinite regress seems to depend on the
uncriticised application of the inadequate category of
whole and part to ultimate Reality. The union of the
one and the many in concrete experience is ultra-
relational. Supplementary Note: Dr. Stout’s reply to
Mr. Bradley

CHAPTER V
THE WORLD OF THINGS—(2) CHANGE AND CAUSALITY

§ 1. The conception of things as interacting leads to the 158

two problems of Change and Causality. The
paradoxical character of change due to the fact that
only what is permanent can change. § 2. Change is
succession within an identity; this identity, like that of
Substance, must be teleological, i.e. must be an
identity of plan or end pervading the process of
change. § 3. Thus all change falls under the logical
category of Ground and Consequence, which
becomes in its application to succession in time the
Principle of Sufficient Reason. § 4. Causality. Cause
—in the modern popular and scientific sense—
means the ground of a change when taken to be
completely contained in preceding changes. That
every change has its complete ground in preceding
changes is neither an axiom nor an empirically
ascertained truth, but a postulate suggested by our
practical needs. § 5. In the last resort the postulate
cannot be true; the dependence between events
cannot be one-sided. The real justification for our use
of the postulate is its practical success. § 6. Origin of
the conception of Cause anthropomorphic. § 7.
Puzzles about Causation. (1) Continuity. Causation
must be continuous, and yet in a continuous process
there can be no distinction of cause from effect.
Cause must be and yet cannot be prior in time to
 effect. § 8. (2) The indefinite regress in causation. §
9. (3) Plurality of Causes. Plurality of Causes is
ultimately a logical contradiction, but in any form in
which the causal postulate is of practical use it must
recognise plurality. § 10. The “necessity” of the
causal relation psychological and subjective. § 11.
Immanent and Transeunt Causality: Consistent
Pluralism must deny transeunt Causation; but cannot
do so successfully. § 12. Both transeunt and
immanent Causality are ultimately appearance

BOOK III
COSMOLOGY—THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY

§ 1. Distinction between the experimental sciences and a

Philosophy of Nature and Mind. The former
concerned with the description, the latter with the
interpretation of facts. § 2. Cosmology is the critical
examination of the special characteristics of the
physical order. Its main problems are: (1) The
problem of the nature of Material Existence; (2)
problem of the justification of the concept of the
Mechanical Uniformity of Nature; (3) problems of
Space and Time; (4) problem of the Significance of
Evolution; (5) problem of the Place of descriptive
Physical Science in the system of Human Knowledge 191

CHAPTER II
THE PROBLEM OF MATTER

§ 1. The physical order, because dependent for its 198

perceived qualities on the sense-organs of the
 percipient, must be the appearance of a more
ultimate reality which is non-physical. § 2. Berkeley’s
criticism is fatal to the identification of this reality with
“material substance.” The logical consequence of
Berkeley’s doctrine that the esse of sensible things is
percipi, would be the subjectivist view that the
physical order is only a complex of presentations. §
3. But this is clearly not the case with that part of the
physical order which consists of the bodies of my
fellow-men. These have an existence, as centres of
feeling, over and above their existence as
presentations to my senses. § 4. As the bodies of my
fellows are connected in one system with the rest of
the physical order, that order as a whole must have
the same kind of reality which belongs to them. It
must be the presentation to our sense of a system or
complex of systems of experiencing subjects; the
apparent absence of life and purpose from inorganic
nature must be due to our inability to enter into a
direct communion of interest with its members. § 5.
Some consequences of this view

CHAPTER III
THE MEANING OF LAW

§ 1. The popular conception of the physical order as 216

exhibiting a rigid mechanical conformity to general
laws, conflicts with our metaphysical interpretation. §
2. Our interpretation would, however, admit of the
establishment of averages or approximately realised
uniformities by the statistical method, which deals
with occurrence en bloc to the neglect of their
individual detail. § 3. “Uniformity” in nature is neither
an axiom nor an empirically verifiable fact, but a
postulate. A consideration of the methods actually
employed for the establishment of such uniformities
 or “laws” of nature shows that we have no guarantee
that actual concrete cases exhibit exact conformity to
law. § 4. Uniformity is a postulate arising from our
need of practical rules for the control of nature. It
need not for this purpose be exact, and in point of
fact our scientific formulæ are only exact so long as
they remain abstract and hypothetical. They do not
enable us to determine the actual course of an
individual process with certainty. § 5. The concept of
the physical order as mechanical is the abstract
expression of the postulate, and is therefore
essential to the empirical sciences which deal with
the physical order. § 6. Consideration of the
character of genuine machines suggests that the
mechanical only exists as a subordinate aspect of
processes which, in their full nature, are intelligent
and purposive

CHAPTER IV
SPACE AND TIME

§ 1. Are time and space ultimately real or only 241

phenomenal? § 2. The space and time of perception
are limited, sensibly continuous, and consist of a
quantitative element together with a qualitative
character dependent on relation to the here and now
of immediate individual feeling. § 3. Conceptual
space and time are created from the perceptual data
by a combined process of synthesis, analysis, and
abstraction. § 4. They are unlimited, infinitely
divisible, and there is valid positive ground for
regarding them as mathematically continuous. Thus
they form infinite continuous series of positions. They
involve abstraction from all reference to the here and
now of immediate feeling, and are thus
homogeneous, i.e. the positions in them are