BRITISH NEW REALISM = KANT VERSUS HEGEL = EPISTEMOLOGY VERSUS METAPHYSICS = POSITIVISM AND PHENOMENALISM (20th CENTURY MODERN EUROPEAN IRRATIONALISM)

Cyril Albert Richardson (1919)

The last half of the nineteenth century gave birth to changes in the world of science of a revolutionary nature.¹ To take two examples alone, Darwin’s [2] doctrine of Natural Selection and Maxwell’s Electromagnetic Theory brought about an entire change of outlook in their respective domains of biology and physics, with a consequent overhauling of all the traditional concepts and principles. It is a commonplace that science and philosophy invariably act and react on one another. The scientific revolution was followed by an upheaval in philosophy. Everything went into the melting pot. There emerged a confused mass of opinion following upon the attempt to fit new facts to old systems, which finally settled down into two main tendencies of thought, the one clinging as far as possible to a modified Absolutism based on Kant and Hegel, the other launching out more boldly in an attempt to apply Evolution as a comprehensive metaphysical formula. The latter, though now generally discredited even by its posterity, was the forerunner of the modern evolutionary and pluralistic schools. While much of the old remained in the new, there was, of necessity, a vagueness both in ideas and in method. Philosophy was cumbered with a mass of useless metaphysical cobwebs. Inevitably there arose an increasing demand for a general clearing up with a view to a fresh start. In this demand the new scientific method finds its motive force … Schools of philosophy may be classified according as they differ in method or in system. Whichever mode of classification is adopted, the various schools fall, broadly speaking, under two main headings. In method [3] they are Empirical or Rationalist; in system, Pluralist or Singularist. Empirical method and pluralistic belief tend to go together, for if we appeal for the most part to the crude data of sense, we are confronted by a manifest plurality. On the other hand, the craving for unity has constantly caused men to mistrust the world of sense with its eternal diversity and flux, and led them to seek the characteristics of the totality of existence by pure thought alone. Hence the method which leads to the singularist or absolutist view of reality is essentially rationalistic. We can best trace the path of progress if we observe the development and interaction of the two classical methods of attacking the problem. Most great advances in philosophy have consisted in a partial synthesis of Rationalism and Empiricism. Kant’s work is a supreme example of such a synthesis. The type of advance is analogous to that of the Hegelian dialectic. In emerging into antithesis after each successive synthesis, Rationalism ever tends to include more empirical data in the material with which it works, while Empiricism is inclined to stray ever further from the surface of things by building up its data into abstract intellectual constructions, and by framing more or less abstract hypotheses to account for these data. Pluralism, with its genetic method, is the modern outcome of Empiricism. The position of Rationalism is not, at first sight, so clear. One’s thoughts turn naturally to the idealism of the Absolutist school; but although the beliefs of this school are upheld by some of the foremost philosophers of the day, they represent an influence which is rapidly on the wane. The true progressive [4] product of Rationalism, despite the fact that its data are mainly empirical, is the New Realism, for its scientific method purports to deal with the form and structure of existence as opposed to its concrete content. The final synthesis of the two points of view consists not in an amalgamation, but in a recognition of the fact that each is necessary to the complete fulfilment of philosophic purpose, and in a determination of the particular function, domain, and limitations, of each associated method … [19] From the more abstract point of view, psychology traces the gradual growth of the concept of self, from the primitive idea of the body–self, through ever more refined and spiritual stages. Eventually we seem to be coming in sight of the bare active subject of experience, as distinguished from the empirical self in all its phases. By proceeding in this way, however, we can never quite reach the subject of experience (though we may come very near it), for we are here dealing with self as conceived, i.e., as an object of knowledge; whereas the concrete self is the knower. Knowing is a relation between two entities, so that evidently the subject cannot know itself. It simply realizes its own existence, though the formulation in conceptual symbols of the fact of this realization, is itself a piece of knowledge. As Kant pointed out, it follows from the foregoing that the only course open to epistemology is to postulate the existence of the pure Ego, or subject of experience, as a regulative idea.²

WORKS CITED

1. Cyril Albert Richardson (1891–1966), Spiritual Pluralism and Recent Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1919, 1–2–3–4–19.

Christopher Richard Wade Dettling, editor, British New Realism = Kant Versus Hegel = Epistemology Versus Metaphysics = Positivism and Phenomenalism (20th Century Modern European Irrationalism), Cyril Albert Richardson, MEDIUM, 2017.

2. As New Realists, C.A. Richardson and the modern irrationalists refuse to talk about the Kantian distinction between phenomena and noumena as sophistry, and thus they refuse to reject Kant as the modern sophist, yet they uphold the selfsame phantasm of phenomena as propounded by their master, albeit under the names of phenomenalism and phenomenology, and so forth: In their refusal to reject Kant as a sophist and the Kantian distinction between phenomena and noumena as sophistry, they justify Kant’s doctrine of phenomena in their avowed contempt for his Absolute (noumenon or thing–in–itself), a move whereby they consider that they have thereby purged Kant of theology and metaphysics (irrationalism) and have thus paved the way for science, — “the new scientific method.” British New Realism is therefore neo–positivism, based upon 19th century positivism, which is neo–Kantianism. Wherefore?

The British New Realists want to rehabilitate Bonapartism in England (the Napoléonic and French Revolutionary conception of right) under a new modus operandi, following the collapse of British Liberalism in the upheaval of the First World War: “There emerged … two main tendencies of thought, the one clinging as far as possible to a modified Absolutism based on Kant and Hegel, the other launching out more boldly in an attempt to apply Evolution as a comprehensive metaphysical formula … great advances in philosophy have consisted in a partial synthesis of Rationalism and Empiricism. Kant’s work is a supreme example of such a synthesis. The type of advance is analogous to that of the Hegelian dialectic.” In the footsteps of Bertrand Russell their leader, they exculpate their own generation from the unreason (and reason) of their elders (war guilt), the royalists and conservatives (Hanoverians and Junkers), — the alleged German metaphysicians (Absolutists), as the militarists and war mongers in British politics and economics, are also culprits behind the catastrophe of 1914. “The idealism of the Absolutist school … represent[s] an influence which is rapidly on the wane.”

The British New Realists are therefore 20th century modern European irrationalists: They have work to accomplish in world history (and votes to win), as Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill prove: They must finish the job started in 1914 by their elders and clear away the last remnants of 19th century European modernity in world history, the political and economic sphere of the backwards and outdated conception of right (after the mastery of Americanism under Lincoln): “Much of the old remained in the new … a mass of useless metaphysical cobwebs … inevitably there arose an increasing demand for a general clearing up with a view to a fresh start. In this demand the new scientific method finds its motive force.” The scientific construction of the new world edifice of Americanism in Europe awaits them, as the historical unfolding of the conceptual rationality of the notion of universal freedom: This dialectical constellation (transition) as a vanishing phase of the power struggle between Kantians and Hegelians in world history, therefore entails the dissolution of European modernity and the rise of the highest realm of Global order …

Lassalle: “Ends and means on earth are so entangled that changing one you change the other too: Different means bring other ends in view.” [Editor]