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Hegel And Dewey And The Problem Of Freedom

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Hegel And Dewey And The Problem Of Freedom

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Content This dissertation has been 65-9972 m icrofilm ed exactly as received FLAY, Joseph Charles, 1932- HEGEL AND DEWEY AND THE PROBLEM OF FREEDOM. University of Southern California, Ph. D ., 1965 Philosophy University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan HEGEL AND DEWEY AND THE PROBLEM OF FREEDOM by Joseph Charles Flay A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Philosophy) January 1965 UNIVERSITY O F SOU TH ER N CALIFORNIA T H E GRADUATE SCH O O L UNIVERSITY PARK LOS ANGELES, C ALIF OR N IA 9 0 0 0 7 This dissertation, written by mittee, and approved by all its members, has been presented to and accepted by the Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of D O C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y . ,riay_ under the direction of h%3....Dissertation Com- Dean Date Jarmary...l.965. DISSERTATION COMMITTEE Chairman « TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION....................................... 1 Chapter PART ONE HEGEL AND DEWEY I. HEGEL'S CONCEPTION OF PHILOSOPHY ......... 7 II. HEGEL'S CONCEPT OF FREEDOM ................ 47 III. THE HISTORICAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HEGEL AND DEWEY .............................. 8l IV. DEWEY: THE HUMAN SITUATION ................ 113 V. DEWEY'S ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM OF FREEDOM. 157 PART TWO AFTER DEWEY VI. THE PROBLEM OF FREEDOM REMAINS........... 183 VII. EPILOGUE................................... 214 BIBLIOGRAPHY .............................. 229 il INTRODUCTION The purpose of this dissertation is (l) to probe the philosophical relationship between Hegel and Dewey as far as the problem of freedom Is concerned, and (2) to examine the solution to this problem as it was proposed by Dewey. My thesis Is that Dewey's analysis of this problem and his proposed solution to It were structured by Hegel's conception of freedom. In Part One I shall establish the relation between the two positions on freedom and present Dewey's solution to the problem. In Part Two I shall be concerned with the solution Itself and with some of Its ramifications. The method of proceeding would seem to be simply to explain what Hegel meant by freedom and then to show how Dewey employed Hegel's conception. We would find, how ever, that the project would be Interrupted before it was even begun; for, although there Is basic agreement on the interpretation of Dewey, this Is not the case where Hegel is concerned. The most cursory glance at the body of Hegelian exegesis will reveal that no thinker in the history of western thought has evoked more controversy and disagreement than has Hegel. The outcome of this contro versy Is a situation of sheer confusion, and to begin my task simply by offering yet another interpretation would only add to this confusion and leave my interpretation in question. Unless Hegel's meaning is clearly established, his relation to Dewey cannot be established. It will be an integral part of my thesis, therefore, to establish my interpretation of Hegel and to show why and to what degree other interpretations involve a misconception of Hegel, thereby precluding an accurate assessment of his relation ship to Dewey. Chapter I will be devoted to an examination of the causes of the disagreement concerning Hegel and a statement of his general philosophical principles on which the analysis of freedom is based. In Chapter II I shall examine Hegel's formulation of the concept of freedom. This will involve not only an explanation of the concept itself, but also an analysis of the thought underlying It. Chapter III will be devoted to the explication of the historical relation between the two men. Chapter IV will deal with Dewey's reassessment of the human situation which is at the basis of the problem of freedom. In Chapter V I shall offer a statement of Dewey's formulation of the problem and examine his proffered solu tion. In these two last chapters of Part One the original thesis will be substantiated. Part Two will begin with the examination of a chronic difficulty which emerges from the problem of free dom as formulated by Hegel and Dewey. Both thinkers were aware of a cyclical Inertia which was an essential part of any social situation. While Dewey was unable to offer any constructive suggestions as to how this "vicious circle" might be broken, Hegel simply observed that, historically, war had been the means through which the difficulty was overcome. But the result of the war was only to leave the society with a different form of the same circle. In Chapter VT I shall examine the nature and causes of this inertia, making use of work done in contemporary social science. We shall find, as a result of this analysis, that' the problem of the Inertia remains, given the problem of freedom as Dewey attempted to treat it. In the final chapter I shall look into the possi bilities contained in the analysis of freedom as conceived by French existentialism (primarily the works of Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir) and some theories in contemporary theology, psychology and psychoanalysis. Although there are many differences to be found between these various theories, they all suggest a general direction which might prove fruitful In solving the problem of freedom. The direction suggested does not represent an absolute break with Hegel and Dewey, although it does entail the surren der of Dewey's mode of solution. This "new direction" explicitly recognizes the validity of the original analysis of the problem and the Inertia which vitiates the progress of freedom. It Is offered by these thinkers as a way out of the circle, and thus as a solution to the original problem. One theme provides the nexus of the dissertation: Hegel's conception of freedom. My purpose Is neither to justify nor defend this conception, nor to invalidate other conceptions. I simply wish to comprehend it and to show Its historical Importance. The problem of freedom has not been solved nor, perhaps, will it ever be solved. But philosophical thought will be forever in debt to Hegel for his formulation, whether, this formulation is the correct one or whether it only serves to further the understanding necessary for the mastery of the problem. PART ONE HEGEL AND DEWEY CHAPTER I HEGEL'S CONCEPTION OP PHILOSOPHY Hegel's view of freedom has been subjected to many varied and often mutually exclusive interpretations. A few examples from his commentators will suffice to show the confusion surrounding his philosophy. It must constantly be kept in mind that the Hegelian State reposes on the respect for persons which is the basis of Abstract Right, and that, whatever may be added to this principle, it at least never overthrows it.l Hegelian freedom, we have maintained, transcends the Individual and his private life; it Is a reconciliation of man with his destiny, and this destiny is manifested in history.2 The state's relation with the individual is essen tially reciprocal; it Is only a final end for the individual to the extent to which its own end Is his liberty and satisfaction. Moreover, an Indi vidual soul's morality or religion has an Infinite 1J. N. Findlay, Hegel: A Re-examination (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1958), p. 323- p ^ Jean Hyppolite, Introduction a la Philosophie de l'Histoire de Hegel (Paris: M. Riviere, 1948), p. 94. 7 value Independent of the state.3 Karl Popper,^ Bertrand Russell,5 and Ernest Barker,^ on the other hand, insist that Hegel justifies tyranny and the dictum that "might makes right." The individual loses all civil rights, is absorbed into an organismic whole, and has only "freedom to obey. 3pierre Hassner, "G. W. F. Hegel," The History of Political Philosophy, ed. Leo Strauss (Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1963), p. 629. ^Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (4th ed. rev.; London: Routledge & Keegan Paul, Ltd., 1962), Vol. II, p. 8. 5Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (New York: Simon Schuster, 1954), pp. 730, 737* ^Ernest Barker, Principles of Social and Political Theory (London: Oxford University Press, 1956), p. 22. 7In addition to Popper, Russell and Barker, Crane j Brinton and Andre Cresson also interpret Hegel as a totali tarian. See Crane Brinton, The Shaping of the Modern Mind (New York: Mentor Books, 1958), pp. 155-57; Andre Cresson, Hegel (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1961), especially pp. 64-65. For various other interpretations, ranging from totalitarianism to liberalism to a purely objective attitude (the latter of which will be my inter pretation) see: Jean Hyppolite, Gen^se et Structure de la Ph^nom^nologie de 1'Esprit de Hegel (Parisl Aubrler, 1946), pp. 311-22; Herman Schmitz, Hegel als Denker der IndivldualitSt (Meisanheim/Glan: A. Haln, 1957); Jacob Fleishmann, "Une Philosophie Politique," Hegel-Studien (Bonn: H. Bouvier u. Co., 1963), Bd. II, pp. 275-78; Edward Caird, Hegel (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood and Sons, 1903); Franz Rosenzweig, Hegel und der Staat (Aalen: Scientia Verlag, 1962), especially Bd. I, 9 Given such a diversity of interpretation, either of two inferences can be made: either Hegel himself was inconsistent and contradictory and the divergent interpre tations can all be justified by an objective reading of his philosophy; or he was consistent, and many of the interpre tations are not warranted. Our argument assumes that the latter is the case. If this assumption is valid, then there is some basic problem or problems, the solution of which will reveal the misinterpretation and lead to a cor rect interpretation. There are two primary causes for the confusion and disagreement. The first is a general misconception of "Vorbemerkungen" and Bd. II, pp. 158-88, 239-45; Geoffrey Mure, An Introduction to Hegel (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1940); Herbert Marcuse, Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory (Boston: Beacon Press, I960), especially Chapters VI and VII; Carl Friedrich, The Philosophy of Hegel (New York: Modern Library, 1953), especially pp. xxlll-li; Guido de Ruggiero, The History of European Liberalism, trans. R. G. Collingwood (London: Oxford University Press, 1927), pp. 229-40; Frederick Copleston, S.J., A History of Philosophy (London: Burns & Oates, Ltd., 1960-64), Vol. VII, pp. 203-25; Franz Gregoire, Etudes Hegeliennes (Louvain: Publications Universitaires de Louvain, 1958), especially pp. 5-8; Alexandre Kojeve, Introduction & la Lecture de Hegel (Paris: Gallimard, 1947), especially pp. 11-34, IO87IO, 155-57; Charles R. Morris, Hegel's Philosophy of the State and of History (Chicago: S. C. Griggs and Co., 1887'), "Introduction." 10 Hegel's Idea of philosophizing; the second is a disagree ment as to whether his Phenomenology of Mind is to be interpreted in light of his Logic, or the Logic in terms of the Phenomenology. Both of these points are interrelated. I shall maintain that Hegel took a clear position on both of these matters, and that a correct understanding of his position will erase the difficulties in interpretation to some degree. Three questions present themselves when one con siders Hegel's conception of philosophy: its relation to time, its relation to ordinary experience and to other intellectual pursuits, and its method of procedure. The combined answers to these three questions define the aim and purpose of philosophy as Hegel conceived it, and also explain his system as a whole and the way in which it must be interpreted if one purports to be interpreting Hegel and not just to be using him for the purpose of further phi losophical reflection.& ®The distinction between these two purposes is often confounded when interpreting Hegel and other philosophers. A rare admission of "use" rather than "understanding" is found in the works of Martin Heidegger. See his Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, trans. James S. Churchill (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1962), pp. xxv, 206, and his Essays in Metaphysics, trans. 11 Hegel made it abundantly clear that what _his system contained had nothing to do with the eternal or a-temporal, nor with the future. His most concise statement concerning the future can be found in the Preface to The Philosophy of Right. Whatever happens, every individual is a child of his time; so philosophy too is its own time appre hended in thoughts. It is just as absurd to fancy that a philosophy can transcend its contemporary world as it is to fancy that an individual can overleap his own age, jump over R h o d e s .9 Kurt F. Leidecker (New York: Philosophical Library, Inc., i960), pp. 4l ff. Although Heidegger does not explicitly mention it, I take it that the same is true of his com ments on Hegel in Holzwege (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1950), pp. 105-92. Of course, Hegel himself Is the greatest "user" of all, but this he explicitly admits. The most obvious*unacknowledged "use" of Hegel's philosophy can be found in Alexandre Kojeve, op. clt. This Is not to deprecate such a procedure, but simply to point out the difference between using a philosopher and attempt ing simply to understand him. Specific comments will be made on Kojeve and others below. 9g . W. F. Hegel, The Philosophy of Right, trans. T. M. Knox (London: Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 11. See also The Logic of Hegel from the First Part of the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, trans. William Wallace (London: Oxford University Press, 1950), pp. 21- 23, 44, 59 (referred to hereafter as The Lesser Logic); The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree (New York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1902), pp. 103* 444, 563; Lectures on the History of Philosophy, trans. E. E. Haldane (New York: The Humanities Press Inc., 1955)* Vol. I, pp. 53-55* English translations of Hegel will be used wherever they are available. 12 He offered an extended treatise on the nature of philosophy in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy. What it means to say that philosophy " is its own time apprehended in thoughts" is spelled out clearly in the following pas sage . But men do not at certain epochs, merely phi losophize in general, for there is a definite Philosophy which arises among a people, and the definite character of the standpoint of thought is the same character which permeates all the other historical sides of the spirit of the people, which is most Intimately related to them, and which con stitutes their foundation. The particular form of a Philosophy is thus contemporaneous with a particu lar constitution of the people amongst whom it makes its appearance, with their institutions and forms of government, their morality, their social life and the capabilities, customs and enjoyments of the same. . . . Mind in each case has elaborated and expanded in the whole domain of its manifold nature the principle of the particular stage of self- consciousness to which it has attained. . . . Philosophy is one form of these many aspects. And which is it? It is the fullest blossom, the Notion of Mind in its entire form, the consciousness and spiritual essence of all things, the spirit of the time as spirit present in itself. •^Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Vol. I, PP* 53-5^- See also the remarks of Gans in the preface to the first edition of The Philosophy of History, pp. 32- 33. As we shall see later, Dewey maintains the same rela tionship of philosophies tc their times. For example, see Reconstruction in Philosophy (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1920). 13 It Is clear, then, that philosophy does not refer to the future. But another confusion arises when Hegel speaks of philosophy, and In particular logic, as the "thought which Is genuine and self-supporting," "the Idea, or the Absolute."11 In the passage just quoted from The History of Philosophy he also described philosophy as "the consciousness and spiritual essence of all things." Phi losophy and its object now seem to take on an aspect of non-temporality. But this is not the case. It [philosophy] is entirely Identical with its time. But if Philosophy does not stand above its time in content, it does so in form, because, as the thought and. knowledge of that which is the sub stantial spirit of its time, it makes that spirit its object. In as far as Philosophy is in the spirit of its time, the latter is Its determined content in the world, although as knowledge, Phi losophy is above it, since it places it in the relation of object. But this Is in form alone, for Philosophy really has no other content. This knowl edge itself undoubtedly is the actuality of Mind, the self-knowledge of Mind which previously was not present [in experience]: thus the formal differ ence is also a real and actual difference. Through knowledge, Mind makes manifest a distinction between knowledge and that which is; this knowledge is thus l-*-The Lesser Logic, p. 24. 14. what produces a new form of development.12 The Wissenschaft which Is philosophy and the object of that science are "outside of time" only in that the content of that knowledge, i.e., the spirit of man as man has developed it, is not now lived as it was in its creation, but is held as an object of thought. It is eternal only in that the content has come to be and therefore will be for all time. "Wesen 1st was gewesen 1st.Ml3 The concept of "spirit" or "mind" (Geist) is cen tral to Hegel's philosophy.14 Although this concept will be discussed and analysed in the chapter on Hegel's 12Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Vol. I, pp. 54-55* See also The Phenomenology of Mind, trans. J. B. Baillie (London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1949), pp. 804-08; The Lesser Logic, pp. 3-12,• Philosophy of Mind from the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, trans. William Wallace (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1894), pp. 3~9, 196-97 (referred to hereafter as Philosophy of Mind). ^see also The Philosophy of History, pp. 125, 133- 34. Spirit" and "mind" are both translations of "Geist." Neither of these words represent in English what "Geist" means in German. I shall use either "spirit" or "mind" when quoting, depending on the use of the transla tor. I shall use "spirit" in the body of the text. 15 conception of freedom, it will be necessary to sketch Its outlines here, since philosophy i^s spirit "present in itself." Spirit was defined by Hegel as the movement of the self which empties (external izes) itself of self and sinks itself within its own substance, and qua subject, both has gone out of that substance into itself, making its substance an object and a content, and also supersedes this distinction of objectivity and content.15 This whole movement of the self is a "self-contained existence" which (l) exists implicitly, (2) externalizes itself, and (3) then becomes one with this externalization. My existence depends upon myself. This self -contained existence of Spirit is none other than self-consciousness--eonsciousness of one's own being. Two things must be distinguished in consciousness; first, the fact that I know; secondly, what I know. In self consciousness •l^The phenomenology of Mind, p. 804. The German text reads: [Der Geist 1st] diese Bewegung des Selbsts, das sich seiner selbst ent&ussert und sich in seine Substanz versenkt, und eben so als Subjekt aus ihr in sich gegangen 1st und sie zum Gegenstande und Inhalte macht, als es diesen Unterschied der Gegenst&ndlichkeit und des Inhalts aufhebt. (Hegel, SMmtliche Werke, hrsg. Hermann Glockner (Stuttgart: Pr. Frommanns, 1951), Bd. II, p. 6l6.) See also The Phenomenology of Mind, pp. 86, 457-61; Phi losophy of Mind, pp. 6-9j The Philosophy of History, p. 133- It would be interesting to make a comparison between this description of spirit (given in the extract above) and the description Heidegger gives of the act of temporalization and transcendence in Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, p. 194. 16 these are merged in one; for Spirit knows itself. It involves an appreciation of its own nature, as also an energy enabling it to realize itself; to make itself actually that which it Is potentially.16 Spirit Is a double movement of self-transcendence In which the human being Involves himself. It manifests itself In the three stages outlined above. As subjective spirit it is the self and knowledge of the self as desire, need, and abstract (unfulfilled) aims.1^ As such it is merely spirit implicit, i.e., pure potentiality of spirit. The second moment of spirit Is the self-transcend ence of subjective spirit. This act of transcendence is what creates the physical and social world as It is for us, i.e., as a matrix of meaning. We realize our purposes and needs through action, and in so doing objectify ourselves •^The Philosophy of History, p. 62. See also the extracts from The Lectures on the History of Philosophy above, pp. 12 and 13-14, and also those sections deleted In the quotation. Spirit is all of the psychological and objective sides of man: his institutions, morality, art, science, religion, philosophy, and thought in general; in short, spirit is man in his thoughts, desires, needs, and the actualization of these In concrete life. Furthermore, this means the actions of particular men, for "man in general" Is an abstraction by Itself. See The Philosophy of History, p. 69• 1^See The Phenomenology of Mind, pp. 457~58j Phi losophy of Mind, pp. 10-11, 12. See also Hegel's des cription of the relationship between thought and will, The Philosophy of Right, pp. 226-27. 17 as we are implicitly; i.e., subjective spirit becomes objective spirit.1® Since action is the action of our selves, from ourselves, we are creating a substance in which, qua creators, we then immerse ourselves. This "immersion" is our participation through action in the natural world and in the institutions we have created and given meaning to. This is the constitution of our everyday life in which we objectify ourselves in order to realize "the absolute right of personal existence--to find itself satisfied in its activity and labor.m19 But this first act of transcendence is in a sense an alienation since the objectifying act of one individual merges and interacts with the acts of others. What is desired and needed (in the form of subjective spirit) and what is brought about in definite existence (in the form of 1®The Philosophy of History, p. 67* See also Philosophy of Mind, pp. 103-06; The Philosophy of Right, pp. 20-21; The Phenomenology of Mind, pp. 462-63* It Is this phase of spirit which will Interest us most In the next chapter. •^The Philosophy of History, p. 68. In The Phenomenology of Mind the section on Objective Spirit is the analysis of this mode of spirit as a way of acting in and on the world. The Philosophy of History presents the historical manifestation of spirit In this phase and The Philosophy of Bight and Philosophy of Mind contain the systematic study of this phase of spirit as It has unfolded. objective spirit) present an antithesis between Ideal (subjective) and actual (objective). Although it is man's world, he is not at home in It.^O gQThe Philosophy of History, p. 72; The Phenomenol ogy of Mind, pp. 678-79; The Lesser Logic, pp. 18-19> 42- 43- The lack of understanding on this point is what is basic to the disagreement in interpretations which we saw above, pp. 9-10. This point will have to be discussed fully in the next chapter, but it may be worthwhile to note a few things here. In so far as there is_ alienation for human beings, objective spirit is not transcendent to the concrete human, but only to man qua subjective spirit. The alienation itself is created by the particular actions of men. Therefore, It is a self-made alienation, and in no way an independently transcendent realm. The primary reason for the alienation is the social nature of man him self. An Individual confronts an already existing external world full of meanings given it by his predecessors. This world is composed of "external things of nature which exist for consciousness, and the ties of relation between individ ual wills which are conscious of their own diversity and particularity" (Philosophy of Mind, p. 103)- This existen tial factor presents the problem of freedom with which we are to deal in the next chapter. The important thing here is to recognize the fact that spirit, although transcendent to Individuals, is transcendent just because the individual has transcended himself In the pursuit of his activities. Hermann Schmitz presents this alienation as the basic motivating force in Hegel's philosophy. Men are faced, he says, with Bedrohung when they meet Endllchkeit in its various manifestations. This may be true for Hegel, but Schmitz gives a normative character to Hegel's philosophy by asserting that Hegel sought to wrest a place for individuality in social life and to secure a place for Individuality in logic (op. cit., pp. 15-16). This "neo-" or "proto-exIstentIalistM view of Hegel is therefore not accurate, since Hegel's philosophy does not have a norma tive character; but It is at least exciting. See also Kojeve, op. cit. for a Marxist view closely related to Schmitz. 19 Absolute spirit, the third moment of spirit and the second act of self-transcendence, must transcend this alienation by holding the process itself as object for itself.21 This second act of transcendence is accomplished through the activities of art, religion and philosophy. The Absolute object, i.e. all that which is, is therefore the object for Absolute Spirit.22 In Art, the object is comprehended by means of the creation of particular existences qua art objects. In Religion it is comprehended as ideal, that is, through the contemplation of and devo tion to God. In Philosophy it is comprehended as concrete, uniting the objectivity of art and subjectivity (ideality) of religion.23 21Philosophy of Mind, pp. 8-9, 167-68. 22The Philosophy of History, p. 445* What is of importance here is meaning, not existence. In nature, existence is prior to meaning (the task of the physical sciences). In the social sphere, meaning and existence coincide. But for Absolute knowledge, and hence for Absolute Spirit, both the natural and the social already exist. On this point see The Phenomenology of Mind, "Sense- certainty," where, at the very beginning of the analysis of Geist, we are engaged only with das Meinung (pp. 149-60). It Is the failure of pure sense awareness to grasp meaning that forces the phenomenology on to other levels of knowl edge In the attempt to find meaning through other modes of knowing. We meet with success only in philosophy where spirit is its own object and can therefore grasp itself. 23see below, pp. 27-29, for the relation between philosophy and other Intellectual and spiritual pursuits. 20 Spirit, then, does not transcend human being, but is the "self-contained existence" of human beings. Human existence is constituted by this double transcendence and, as we shall see, is free in so far as the act is completed. If this is the only sense in which Spirit (includ ing Absolute Spirit) is transcendent to men, then the ques tion arises as to what Hegel meant when he called his Phi losophy of History a "theodicy," and when he referred to the Absolute as God. We have already seen that Art, Reli gion and Philosophy all have the same content, the Absolute, but that they have it in different forms. The highest form which religion itself takes is that of "revealed religion."2^ But even in revealed religion the Absolute is still held only in ideal form, i.e. in "figura tive thought."25 Nevertheless, revealed religion is supe rior to other forms of religion because it has moved to the point where God is real only in so far as He has entered directly into the consciousness of men. "God is God only so far as He knows himself: this self-knowledge is, further, His self-consciousness in man, and man's knowledge ^ The Phenomenology of Mind, p. 758; The Philosophy of Mind, pp. 175-80. 2^The Phenomenology of Mind, p. 790. 21 of God, which proceeds to man's self-knowledge in God."2^ God is spirit, therefore, only as He has come to be. But this is not a theory of "emanation." God can only be known qua real concrete existence, and He has concrete existence only in so far as He has self-consciousness in man.2? The philosophy of history as a theodicy, therefore, is nothing more than what we have already described as spirit. What we call principle, aim, destiny, or the nature and idea of Spirit, is something merely general and abstract. Princlple--Plan of Existence--Law--is a hidden, undeveloped essence, which as__such--however true in ltself--is not completely real. Aims, prin ciples, etc., have a place in our thoughts, in our subjective design only; but not yet in the sphere of reality. That which exists for itself only, is a possibility, a potentiality; but has not yet emerged into Existence. A second element must be introduced in order to produce actuality--viz. actuation, realization; and whose motive power is the Will--the activity of man in the widest sense. It is only by this activity that that Idea as well as abstract characteristics generally, are realized, actualized; for of themselves they are powerless. The motive power that puts them in operation, and gives them determinate existence, is the need, ^ The Philosophy of Mind, p. 176. The Philosophy of History, p. 110; see also Philosophy of Mind, pp. 182-96. 22 instinct, inclination, and passion of man.2® Religion has to do with the first element, philosophy treats of the second. But in so far as religion itself becomes concrete, philosophy encompasses it as well as the other objectifications of men. Almost a century later in a different context Albert Einstein echoed Hegel's position when he said, "I'm not trying to find out who made the universe, but only how He made it."^9 Philosophy is pO The Philosophy of History, p. 67* In connection with this, see Hegel's discussion on the relation between philosophy and religion in The Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Vol. I, pp. 61-92. Much was done to bring to light the concrete historical character of Hegel's work by the publication of Hegel's early works following the researches of Dilthey. See Hegels Theologische Jugend- schrlften (Tubingen: H. Nohl, 1907)* Jean Hyppolite has attempted to trace the influence of these early years upon his later writings in Introduction a la Philosophie de l'Histoire de Hegel. See especially Hyppolite's remark that Hegel's philosophy constituted a "return to the things themselves," op. cit., p. 10. Rosenzweig has done the same for Hegel's political thought in his Hegel und der Staat. For a discussion of the chronology of these early writings, see Gisela Schuler, "Zur Chronologie von Hegels Jugend- schriften," Hegel-Studien, Bd. II, pp. 111-59* 2^See Lincoln Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein (New York: Mentor Books, 1957 )* PP- 39* 117-l8 for some of Einstein's comments on religion. The similarity to Hegel and the Absolute is striking. See also the comment on Hegel, p. 123. theodicy, but only In the concrete sense of understanding the history and nature of spirit. We have also seen that the understanding which philosophy yields is what "in turn produces a new form of d e v e l o p m e n t . "30 This reference to the future indicates one final aspect of Hegel's conception of the relation of philosophy to time. There is a question of whether or not Hegel thought that the development had now come to an end, i.e., that his "system" was the last w o r d .31 The answer to this is that Hegel did not consider his philosophy the end of philosophy. What he did say is that his system compre hended "the standpoint of the present day, and the series of spiritual forms is with it for the present c o n c l u d e d . " 32 He completed his lectures on the history of philosophy with the request that his students "grasp the spirit of the time, which is present in us by nature, and--each in his own place--consciously . . . bring it from its natural ^See above, pp. 13-14. 31por an example of this query see Copleston, op. cit., p. 244. 32The Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Vol. Ill, p. 552. See also The Philosophy of Right, pp. 11-13; The Lesser Logic, p. 375; The Philosophy of History, p. 568. 24 condition, i.e. from its lifeless seclusion, into the light of day."33 The philosophical project is not at an end because history is not finished. There are two passages in The Philosophy of History to which we shall refer later in connection with Dewey, but which are relevant here. The first involves a long discussion of America and spirit in which Hegel has the following to say. "America is there fore the land of the future, where, In the ages that lie before us, the burden of the World's History shall reveal itself--perhaps in a contest between North and South A m e r i c a ."34 Hegel then specifies, in a rare reference to the future history of spirit, what he believes will con stitute this new struggle for freedom. It will come in the form of a conflict between "liberalism" and the notion of freedom as it had evolved in Germany in the state which Hegel described as "the standpoint of the present day." "This collision, this nodus, this problem, is that with which history is now occupied, and whose solution it has to 33The Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Vol. Ill, p. 553. See J. N. Findlay's comments on this, op. cit., p . 346. 3^The Philosophy of History, p. 142. 25 work out in the future."35 He makes it clear, however, that this reference to the future is pure speculation and cannot be discussed as philosophy. Hegel’s refusal to dis cuss the future has been interpreted to mean that the future was closed so far as he was concerned. But it is only closed to philosophical inquiry since the Absolute can only be comprehended as it has developed concretely. The first question concerning Hegel’s conception of philosophy has been answered. Neither philosophy nor its object refers in any usual sense to the future or to the eternal. The object of philosophy includes philosophy itself, and is constituted by what has come to be in and through spirit. Furthermore, there is neither approval nor disapproval of what has come to be, but simply an attempt to comprehend. 35jbid., pp. 563-64. Hyppolite wrongly interprets this passage as alluding to a synthesis of liberalism and totalitarianism. But to interpret it in this way is con trary to Hegel's meaning. He did not conceive the essence of the State as totalitarian. See Hyppolite, Introduction & la Fhilosophie de I’Histoire de Hegel, p. 94. Compare R. Kroner's remark on Hyppolite: "... bei aller Anerkennung fiir die grosse Leistung Hyppolites bleibt doch eine gewisse Kluft zwischen dem deutschen 'Geiste' und dem franziisischen 'Esprit' bestehen." (Hegel-Studien, Bd. I, p. 144. ) 26 This book, then, containing as it does the science of the state, is to be nothing other than the endeavour to apprehend and portray the state as something inherently rational. As a work of phi losophy, it must be poles apart from an attempt to construct a state as it ought to be. The instruc tion which it may contain cannot consist in teach ing the state what it ought to be; it can only show how the state, the ethical universe, is to be understood. . . . To comprehend what is, this is the task of philosophy, because what is, is reason.36 Philosophical understanding is the comprehension of the essence of the living experience of man. The world is as it is, and it is not the task of philosophy to change it. Our second question has also been partially ans wered. The content of philosophy is no other than actuality, that core of truth which, originally produces and producing itself within the precincts of the mental [spiritual] life, has become the world, the inward and outward world, of consciousness. At first we become aware of these 36q»he Philosophy of Right, p. 11. See also The Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Vol. I, pp. 3-4; The Lesser Logic, pp. 11-12. Gans comments on the impor tance of understanding this side of Hegel in The Philosophy of History, p. 26. The description of Hegel as an histori- cist is thereby invalidated. Compare Popper, op. cit. For the meaning of the much disputed term "rational" see The Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Vol. I, p. 21; The Lesser Logic, pp. 9-12; 257-72; The Philosophy of His tory, pp. 55* 84-85; The Philosophy of Right, pp. 10-11. What is "real" is what has been realized or actualized, and what has been realized is what has been comprehended. "The real is the rational" is therefore a tautology. For objections to this interpretation see Friedrich, op. cit., p. xi. 27 contents in what we call Experience.37 The point of departure for philosophy is "simple experi ence," which includes both immediate consciousness and inductions from the immediate state.38 "Consciousness knows and comprehends nothing but what falls within its experience; for what is found in experience is merely spiritual substance, and, moreover, object of its self."39 Experience is constituted by spirit, and the self-compre hension of spirit is the objective of philosophy. Other "modes of knowing" also attempt to under stand and order this experience. None of them, however, is successful. The special sciences are "one-sided" because they become acquainted with the finite substance in a purely formal and subjective way. Their formality precludes their comprehending anything exhibiting non- finitude and restricts them to what can be qualified. Spirit, to the contrary, is qualitative as well. This is not to say that the special sciences do not have their place in human knowledge. On the contrary, in so far as 37The Lesser Logic, p. 9• 38lbid., p. 19. 3^The Phenomenology of Mind, p. 19• 28 they are able to elucidate the world for us, they are valuable. ^ Religion and theology have the opposite defect. They deal only with "the content or the objective moment" and are wholly abstracted from form.^1 "Popular philoso phy," (e.g. the philosophy of Cicero) also attempts to understand spirit. Its moving force is "feeling" and "com mon sense." "The source of popular philosophy is in the heart, impulses and capacities, our natural Being, my jl O impression of what is right and of God." But this source of knowledge generates only opinion, for it deals in a fragmented way with spirit. It does accomplish, however, what other forms of knowledge fail to do, namely, the encompassing of both the qualitative and quantitative, the finite and the infinite. Philosophy proper does not differ from other modes 40 ^ The Lesser Logic, pp. 13-16. See also The Lec tures on the History of Philosophy, Vol. I, pp. 56-61, 92; The Phenomenology of Mind, pp. 99-104, 180-213. ^ The Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Vol. I, pp. 61-92, especially p. 92. See also The Lesser Logic, p. 132; Philosophy of Mind, pp. 175-80. For Hegel's analy sis of religion as a mode of human being see The Phenome nology of Mind, pp. 685-785> and my remarks above, pp. 20- 22. ^gThe Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Vol. I, pp. 92-93. 29 of knowing in so far as content is concerned. It does, however, satisfy two interrelated criteria which the other modes cannot satisfy: internal completeness and an extrin sic harmony with simple experience. This demand for cor respondence with experience is a criterion which is fre quently overlooked by students of Hegel. But it Is inextricably linked to his criterion of coherence. As it is only In form that philosophy Is dis tinguished from other modes of attaining an acquaintance with this same sum of beings, it must necessarily be in harmony with actuality and experi ence. In fact, this harmony may be viewed as at least an extrinsic means of testing the truth of a philosophy.^3 It is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for the validity of a philosophical system. Completeness or coher ence Is also a necessary condition. Philosophy is a mode of consciousness which, arising from and resting in experi ence, "does not deal with a determination that is non- essential, but with a determination so far as It Is an essential factor. ^3The Lesser Logic, p. 10. See also The Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Vol. I, p. 95* ^ The Phenomenology of Mind, p. 105; The Lesser Logic, pp. 283-90. \ 30 The discovery of what is essential and what is unessential can come only from the systematic understand ing of the process of spirit itself. It is the systematic procedure of philosophy which gives it Its form and sets it apart from other modes of knowing. This form or method is self-generating, that is, It grows out of the process of spirit Itself. Other modes of knowing deal with particular appearances and thereby fragment experience. Philosophy, if It is to be Absolute knowledge, I.e. knowledge of the absolute, must attempt to comprehend experience on its own terms. Philosophy still deals with appearance, but Its object is the process Itself and not particular appear ances . ^5 In The Phenomenology -of Mind Hegel establishes the necessity of proceeding as he does In his "science" by demonstrating the failure of every other form of human experience to encompass the whole of experience, whether through thought or action. The question of Hegel's method must be settled by an examination of this phenomenological study.^ The main difficulty in understanding Hegel is the h.p -'The Phenomenology of Mind, p. 105* ^6Ibid., p. 97* 31 failure to recognize the priority of The Phenomenology. The first part of Hegel's system is not The Logic, but The Phenomenology.^ The recognition of this fact is crucial to a proper understanding of Hegel. If Hegel's logic and The Encyclopedia are taken to be the alpha and omega of his philosophy (and this includes other formal works such as The Philosophy of Right), then the system does become a seemingly endless deduction of categories which has been described as "the bloodless war of categories." "To know something falsely means that knowledge is not adequate to, is not on equal terms with, Its substance" ^ Ibid., pp. 88, 95~97* See also The Lesser Logic, pp. 58-59. See Baillie's comment on Hutchison Stirling in the former’s introduction to The Phenomenology. Stirling has had a great Influence on the British and American Interpretations of Hegel, and his lack of sensitivity to The Phenomenology in large part contributed to the ultra- logical view of Hegel, which sees Hegel's system as some sort of deduction of reality. The British Hegelians and commentators usually take this view. See also W. T. Stace, The Philosophy of Hegel (New York: Dover Publications, Inc.-, 1955), P* 83; Carl Friedrich, op. cit., p. liv (Friedrich Is ambivalent: compare p. xlii); Cresson, op. cit., pp. 77-78; J. N. Findlay, op. cit., pp. 71-82. Among those who take The Phenomenology as basic are Gregoire, op. cit., p. v; Hyppolite, Introduction h la Philosophie de l’Histoire de Hegel, p. 11 and Gen^se et Structure de la Ph^nomdnologie de 1'Esprit de Hegel, pp. 9, 553* These latter commentators, however, differ as to the way in which The Phenomenology is basic. 32 |iO or subject matter. ° The discovery of what will make phi losophical knowledge adequate to its subject matter must grow out of an examination of this subject matter: spirit itself. The beginning of philosophy presupposes or demands from consciousness that it should feel at home in this element. But this element only attains its perfect meaning and acquires transparency through the process of gradually developing it. 49 Immediate experience does not present itself to us as ordered, for we are simply living it.50 The process of gradual development--from the most simple, lived experience to philosophy--is examined in The Phenomenology. What mind prepares for itself in the course of its phenomenology is the element of true knowledge. In this element the moments of mind are now set out in the form of thought pure and simple, which knows its object to be itself. They no longer involve the opposition between being and knowing; they remain within the undivided simplicity of the know ing function; they are the truth in the form of truth, and their diversity is merely diversity of the content of truth.51 ^®The Phenomenology of Mind, pp. 98-99* liQ Ibid., p. 86. 5^The Lesser Logic, pp. 18-24. ^ The Phenomenology of Mind, p. 97* 33 The examination of experience, beginning with its simplest form in sense awareness, immediately exhibits a "dissimilarity which obtains in consciousness between the ego and the substance constituting its object.The dis similarity between the two is their inner distinction, the factor of nega tivity in general. We may regard it as the defect of both opposites, but it is their very soul, their moving spirit. . . . While this negative factor appears in the first Instance as a dissimilarity, as an Inequality, between ego and object, it is just as much the inequality of the substance with itself. What seems to take place outside it, to be an activity directed against it, is its own doing, its own activity; and substance shows that it is in reality subject. When it has brought this out completely, mind has made its existence adequate to and one with its essential nature.53 What Hegel is saying here (and demonstrates in the pheno menology itself) is that experience itself is permeated with negativity. This negativity is essentially the "mutual otherness" of subject and object. But subject and object are nothing more than the two poles into which experience divides Itself. Experience is constituted by the interplay of subject (ego) and object; and without either one, experience as we know it would be impossible. 5gIbid., p. 96. 53Ibid., pp. 96-97. 34 This is the primary source of the dialectic: the relation of otherness inherent in experience as such. When we reflect on experience we are forced to take this primary dialectic into consideration. We' are pre sented with a whole (experience) which contains differ ence (subject and object). Outside of this, there is nothing for us. What there is for us qua reflecting on experience is a self-motivating process involving the opposition between being and knowing. As we examine the various modes of knowing and being, experience Itself demonstrates its own adequacies and inadequacies. Only when we reach a mode of experience in which the experienc ing is adequate to experience as such does the phenomeno logical inquiry end. This mode is reached when we examine philosophy, that is, when experience as it is for-itself displays as human spirit confronting human spirit. Hegel's procedure in the phenomenology is governed by this d i a l e c t i c .54 First, each mode of experience is ^That Hegel knows where he is going is a truism, but it doesn't necessitate his doing violence to experience. What he knows is that he wants to find a mode of experience which is capable of comprehending experience. Any mode of knowledge or action which does not accomplish this is in so far deficient. The "odyssey" perpetuates itself. taken as it is in-itself. It is examined in the light of simply being what it is as it is experienced by an experiencer. From this point of view, it is seen as it is subjectively immersed in the experiencing. Then it is examined objectively, as it is for-itself. The experienc ing becomes the object of experience. In this moment we have a relation of thought (the philosopher doing the phenomenological analysis) to a particular example of experiencing. Experience is "for us" in experience as it is for-itself in this mode. So long as we are forced back and forth between the subject and the object, between being and knowing, because of a dissimilarity between the two poles, we must count this mode of experience as Inade quate means of gaining knowledge of the whole of experience. We begin, then, with the particular mode of experience as it appears in concrete life. Next this mode of experience Is examined as It is for-itself in order to test the adequacy of its claims.of truth. In so far as the experience as it Is for-itself displays an inadequacy (falsity) it must be discarded. But every mode of experi ence is adequate to some degree, since it is_ constituted by an interplay between ego and object. We are never left with a completely negative result. What we do find at the end of each examination is this mode of experiencing as it is In-and-for-itself. As it is in-itself it displays cer tain claims to knowledge; as it is for-itself it shows to what degree it can meet these claims. As it is in-and-for- itself it gives direction (thus it is the !lspeculative moment") to the discovery of the next form of experience to be examined. . In so far as one mode of experience further fulfills the unrealized claims of the previous mode, it is necessary.55 The end of the analysis is the discovery of phi losophy. In philosophy the notion (Begriff) is the object for comprehension (begriffen). Thought comprehends the ways In which thought grasps being. There is no longer a discrepancy between the mode of experiencing and what is being experienced. Experience is in-itself as It is for- itself. Spirit can only know itself when it has Itself, 55por Hegel's explicit description of this pro cess see The Phenomenology of Mind, pp. 88-99* 135-45; The Lesser Logic, pp. 143-55; The Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Vol. I, pp. 21-27* 37 and not something alien, as o b j e c t .56 The purpose of this digression into a discussion of The Phenomenology was to elucidate the method of philosophy as Hegel conceived it. First of all, we have seen that The Phenomenology and not The Encyclopedia is the founda tion of Hegel's philosophy. Secondly, we have seen that the dialectic itself arises out of experience, and that it implies nothing more than the attempt of experience (qua philosophy) to understand experience (qua concrete life). Philosophy adds no new content to experience, but simply produces rationality and coherent meaning.57 Men want to comprehend "man-in-the-world" or spirit, and this can only be done by taking spirit as it appears to itself. When immersed in the world, man as actor and thinker can at best arrive at only a partial comprehension of the meaning of his immersion. Philosophical science begins in experience and remains there. The science itself is nothing more than the development of the ways in which spirit can be grasped in concreteness. The whole of The Encyclopedia of the 56see above, pp. 14-20, 27- ^ The Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Vol. I, p. 21. 38 Philosophical Sciences, from the Idea of Being to Philoso phy, yields this concreteness. There are three main divi sions of this science: Logic, The Philosophy of Nature, and The Philosophy of Spirit. Logic examines thought as it is in-and-for-itself, the second division examines nature as it is in-and-for-itself, and the philosophy of spirit considers spirit as it is in-and-for-itself. The methodological examination contained in each of these divisions is governed by the dialectic. In order to grasp anything as it is In-and-for-itself (I.e. con cretely), we must first see it as it is in-itself, then as it Is for-itself. Consequently, in logic we begin with Being, which is the most general category of all, but which lacks all concrete determination. The remainder of the logic consists in the "filling-up" of this category. The end result Is the Absolute Idea, fully determinant b e i n g . <jhe development from Being to Absolute Idea is necessitated by the same negativity or dialectic which Is found in experience itself. Each successive "idea" together with all the previous ones is found to be insufficient -^The Lesser Logic, p. 375- Compare The Philosophy of History, p. 445• 39 simply because further determinations present themselves in experience. When the categories of thought have been seen in their relations to each other and to the whole of experience, thought has found an independence or "absolute liberty."59 With this liberty man confronts nature and spirit itself. Man’s confrontation with nature is explored in The Philoso phy of Nature. The physical and biological sciences are the manifestation of this confrontation in which the cate gories are invested externally, i.e., in nature. We are not here interested in "nature-ln-itself without man" (some thing which could not even be conceived), but in man and nature as they confront one another. Finally, spirit is understood in-and-for-itself as man confronts himself explicitly. It is this stage of man which makes logic and philosophy of nature and the content of these possible. Man is understood as subject (anthro pology, phenomenology, and psychology), as creator and 59The Lesser Logic, p. 379* The mystique surround ing the philosophy of nature and philosophy of spirit dis appear if one simply pays attention to the sub-divisions in these works. This is no metaphysics in the traditional sense. actor in the world (the study of right, morality, society and the state), and finally as the creature who himself attempts to comprehend t-hat which is or the Absolute (in the pursuits of art, religion, and philosophy). The whole of the Encyclopedia itself is the result of this last pro ject of man, philosophizing. It is man's highest achieve ment because it is the mode of being which attempts to comprehend the form and content of its own comprehension. Spirit is itself its own object, and we have finally accom plished what was begun in The Phenomenology. My discussions in this chapter were precipitated by the confusion and disagreement concerning Hegel's view of freedom. I would like to sum up what I have said con cerning Hegel's philosophy in order to show that many interpretations of Hegel are unfounded. This summary will also serve to give a foundation to the subject matter of the next chapter, Hegel's conception of freedom. The following are the major points. 1. Hegel was attempting to comprehend Spirit, i.e man-in-the-world In his complete concreteness. Spirit does not transcend man, but Is the result of his own activity. 41 2. Philosophy and its subject matter (which are identical for Hegel) is atemporal only in that spirit is not now active, i.e. developing, but is examining and com prehending itself. 3- This comprehension cannot refer to the future, but only to'what has come to be in time. 4. There is no attempt either to justify what is or to formulate what ought to be. 5. Philosophy itself produces no content, but merely attempts to comprehend the content given. 6. The "dialectical method" arises out of the experience of man (a) confronting his world and (b) trying to understand or make this confrontation rational. 7. The necessity of a system can only be shown by means of showing its adequacy to experience and its inner coherence. 8. Everything uncovered in the philosophical analysis is of importance simply because it is part of spirit and defines spirit. 9. The only superiority assigned to philosophy is its characteristic of completeness. If the foregoing analysis is correct, then certain approaches to Hegel are invalidated. His social and 42 political theory and his concept of freedom were not norma tive or justificatory in any way.^ Hegel was describing and explaining the essential aspects of Objective Spirit. Secondly, the only way in which spirit transcends the individual is in the mode of the individual's transcendence of himself.61 Thirdly, his "position" cannot be classified ^^Most commentators interpret Hegel1s system as normative or justificatory to some degree. For the most radical position on this, see Bertrand Russell, op. cit., pp. 730-46; Karl Popper, op. cit., especially Vol. II, pp. 7-20; Ernest Barker, op. cit., pp. 19-22; Sidney Hook, From Hegel to Marx (New York: Humanities Press, 1950), p. 19* This view is also at the basis of the interpreta tion of Cresson, see op. cit., pp. 64-65* and Rosenzweig, see op. cit., p. 172. Karl Friedrich, Hyppolite and Copleston, although recognizing Hegel's non-normative character, are ambivalent. See Friedrich, op. cit., p. liv, Hyppolite, Introduction £ la Philosophie de l'Hlstoire de Hegel, p. 94, Copleston, op. cit., p. 225- See my earlier remarks on Schmitz, above, p. 18, ftn. 20. J. N. Findlay is highly ambivalent, but expresses a non- normative view: see op. cit., pp. 346-54, 71-82. The best interpretation of Hegel as non-normative can be found in Hassner, op. cit. See also above, p. 31, ftn. 47* 6lRussell and the British together with Popper, Hook and Cresson represent the view that spirit is trans cendent. Hyppolite, although usually at odds with the above, also holds this view: see especially, Introduction h la Philosophie de l'Hlstoire de Hegel, p. 94. Copleston represents the view that is is simply what is, but tends to make it theological in nature: see op. cit., pp. 245- 46. Windelband, Stace and Brinton show no sense of this meaning of concreteness in Hegel; see their works cited. Gregoire, Findlay, Friedrich and MacDonald at times give evidence of grasping it. See works cited. 43 as liberal, conservative, reactionary or in any other way.^2 Philosophy and history had not come to an end for Hegel and the future was open for further developments in the concretizing of freedom.^ Hegel simply undertook the comprehension of what is. He was not, for instance, justifying war, but simply showing an understanding of the fact that war had been the ultimate method of settling differences between states and that it also served to hold societies together. Essentially, then, Hegel was an historical realist trying to understand man in his world. The essence of what had come to be, of the Absolute, had to be brought into self-consciousness, thus becoming notion. His under standing was limited to the subject matter available, namely the activity of men as manifested in their actions and thoughts as individuals, and in the history of their states, science, religions,, and philosophies. Hegel's system must stand or fall as a system. A piecemeal use of. this system takes the subject matter out of context and changes its meaning. To be sure, it has See above, pp. 8-9, ftn. J; p. 25, ftn. 35* 63see above, pp. 24-25- 44 been used in this way; but this kind of use cannot be labelled "Hegelian." Marx clearly understood Hegel in so far as he claimed that the latter only sought to understand the world and the time had come (i.e. with Marx) to change the world. Finally, Hegel's use of the word "truth" must be clearly understood. In so far as one is attempting to comprehend reality, only a system which will show both internal necessity (coherence) and "harmony with experi ence" is adequate.6^ This is not to say that any other conception of truth is non-truth or only partial truth. Each mode of knowledge and its criterion of truth is ade quate to reality from a certain limited perspective. The various conceptions of truth in ordinary logic, empirical science, religion, common sense, et cetera are valid conceptions of truth since.they do serve certain purposes. The only point that Hegel makes in The Phenomenology is that these conceptions are not adequate when dealing with the Absolute or the totality of reality in its manifold relations. So long as they do not purport to be, they remain valid modes of knowledge and adequate conceptions fill The Lesser Logic, pp. 44-45• of truth.65 Hegel’s whole system rests" on the simple tautology that whatever we know of the world, we know of the world. To comprehend reality means precisely to comprehend it. This does not imply a Kantian thing-in-itself. Nor is it Fichtean, Berkelian or Platonic idealism. It is a phenome nological, not an idealist, view. All there Is for us is experience, and experience Is constituted by the subject and its object. It makes no sense to speak of the world (real or imagined) as it exists outside of experience, and therefore it makes no sense to speak of idealism and realism. The relations In experience are not existential relations, but relations of meaning. Hegel's logic coincides with metaphysics because logic (and the whole of the Encyclopedia) is "the science of things set and held In thoughts,--thoughts accredited able to express the essential nature of reality."66 Because meaning is a function of my activity, one who doesn't look at the world 65The Phenomenology of Mind, pp. 70-72, 133- Hegel suggests the use of the word "correctness" (Richtigkeit) for what we have in ordinary experience, the sciences, et cetera. The word "truth" (Wahrheit) should be reserved for the adequacy of the notion to reality. See The Lesser Logic, pp. 305, 352, 354. ^ The Lesser Logic, p. 45. rationally will not be presented with a rational universe. Conversely, Mto him who looks upon the world rationally, the world in its turn presents a rational aspect."67 The world does not of itself force order upon us. Order, meaning, comprehension, only arise in Spirit. ^ The Philosophy of History, p. 55 • CHAPTER II HEGEL'S CONCEPT OP FREEDOM In the preceding chapter I have outlined Hegel's conception of philosophy and its object. Philosophy is an area of human activity in which men try to comprehend the Absolute as it presents itself to them. One moment of the Absolute is the emergence of Spirit as objective, the emergence of man as actor. The problem of freedom arises when men, as actors, interact in a social context, I.e. with other men. The activity of philosophy itself is an intrinsic part of the realization of freedom. Freedom only becomes objective and a problem when men know they are either free or not free. But to know they are free they must realize what freedom is. This knowledge of what freedom Is can only come as a result of engaging In philosophical analy sis. Spirit must know itself to be as It Is in 47 48 actuality.1 Hegel presents his analysis of freedom in its broadest outlines in The Philosophy of History. Here we see the course of the consciousness of freedom as it appears in world history through the succession of civili zations. The history of freedom begins in the oriental world where freedom pertains to only one lndividual--the despot. There is no consciousness of freedom in this civilization, and therefore the idea of freedom is only O implicit. The second civilization with which we are pre sented is the Graeco-Roman world. Here there is conscious ness of freedom, but only certain individuals are con sidered free. The rise of Christianity announces the birth of the modern world where all men are considered free. The possibility of the actualization of freedom arises out of this conception that man, qua man, is free. The actual ^The Philosophy of History, p. 62; The Lesser Logic, p. 49; The Philosophy of Right, p. 156; The Phi losophy of Mind, p. 7- Spirit must complete the double transcendence of Subjective and Objective Spirit to Absolute Spirit. Objective Spirit "forms" the Absolute Object for consciousness of freedom. ^The reason why there cannot be freedom under this circumstance is that there is no mutual recognition of freedom between persons. The capricious action of the despot, however, exhibits freedom as it is in-itself. 49 unfolding of this freedom takes place in the third civili- zation, that of the German nations. Hegel's analysis of the concept of freedom is pre sented in four of his works. In The Philosophy of History, of which we have just had an outline, Hegel analyses free dom as it has been manifested in historical time. The Phenomenology of Mind examines freedom as part of the phenomenological analysis of the stages of a human being as he brings himself forth as Spirit. The Philosophy of Mind and The Philosophy of Right, the latter of which is simply a detailed study of the section in Philosophy of Mind entitled "Objective Mind,1 1 contain an analysis of freedom at the level of Philosophy proper, i.e., at the level where the concept Is examined systematically as it ■ presents Itself in and for itself. The two former works exhibit the development of the notion in time, the latter two Involve the "scientific" comprehension of this develop ment. All four works are necessary for a complete ^The body of The Philosophy of History gives the concrete explication of this progressive development. What I have said here gives the essence of that explica tion. See ibid., pp. 62-63* It is important to note here that the phrase "the German nations" does not refer to Deutschland alone, but to the whole of western Europe. See ibid., pp. 440-44. understanding of the concept. Put briefly, the concept of freedom evolves from the abstract (as it is in-itself) to the speculative stage (as it is in-and-for-itself) in the following way. Free dom always pertains to individual men.^ In the abstract it means liberty of action, independence from restrictions, the right to do. Any restriction which is imposed externally is a violation of individual freedom. In order to be free, therefore, one must be able to translate his desires and needs into action, thereby "objectifying" him self. This objectification is the essence of freedom. The essential aspect of freedom is manifested in the abil ity of an individual to realize his desires and needs In action without restriction.5 When this idea is looked at as it Is for-itself, however, it becomes other than this simple subjective Idea. Every Individual, from the moment of his birth, exists in some relation to other individuals, and this Is what society is in Its simplest terms. When seen in this ^See above, p. 16, ftn. 16. 5The Philosophy of Right, pp. 37“40; Philosophy of Mind, pp. 8, 103-04; The Philosophy of History, pp. 67-70* 51 context, freedom becomes its own opposite. The abstract idea of freedom implies absolute freedom, but absolute freedom in the societal matrix is anarchy, a "war of all against all," absolute non-freedom. The idea of freedom as it now stands is an absolute limitation.6 The negativity inherent in the idea as it is for- itself necessitates a reconsideration of the idea as it is in-and-for-itself in order to comprehend freedom as notion, i.e., as it is in the concrete. The dialectical nature of the idea leads to the following "speculation."7 There are two necessary conditions for freedom. On the one hand, there is an individual who has thoughts and desires which need to be consumated in action. It is a necessary ^See Hegel's discussion of this in The Phenome nology of Mind, pp. 229-40, 599-610. See also The Philoso phy of Right, the sections on Morality, Family and Civil Society, and Philosophy of Mind, pp. 113-31, where this conflict is worked out systematically. In The Philosophy of History, p. 73, Hegel employs the analogy of the build ing of a house in contrast to the built house to show the nature of this conflict. ^For Hegel's use of the word "speculation" see The Lesser Logic, pp. 152-54. Not only philosophers, but all human beings, must engage in this speculation In order to concretize their Idea of freedom and their subsequent actions. That is, they must complete the double trans cendence. condition for freedom that these thoughts and desires, and the actions which follow from them, be not only realizable, but realized. On the other hand, the individual is in a matrix which of necessity places limitations upon these thoughts, desires, and actions.® These limitations are also necessary conditions for actual freedom: the only alternative to some degree of limitation is no limitation, and where there is no limitation there is no freedom. Actual freedom consists in both the essence of the abstract idea and its limitations. Freedom means objectification through reason. Rights are neither demanded to the point of licentiousness, nor are they taken away. Objectifica tion through reason is action under law, whereby the laws reflect "the general will" or that will which embodies both conditions for freedom. The crux of Hegel's analysis of the concept of freedom lies in his dialectical examination of the idea as it is for-itself. The idea itself implies the two condi tions for freedom which constitute the speculative moment ^Freedom and necessity, as understood in abstrac tion, are thus united in actual freedom. See The Philoso phy of History, p. 72; The Lesser Logic, pp. 280-83; The Philosophy of Right, pp. 26-31* 53 of the idea as it is in-and-for-itself. It is the moment in which Subjective Spirit transcends itself and becomes objective. The human world consists not only in thought but also in action, and action creates the form of spirit in which the human being immerses himself. I have already outlined the nature of the act of transcendence, but it will now be necessary to examine it in greater detail.9 In a passage In the "Introduction1 ’ to The Philoso phy of Right, Hegel has summed up the analysis that was undertaken in The Phenomenology regarding the nature of Subjective Spirit. I shall quote the passage almost in its entirety, for nowhere else did Hegel so clearly and explicitly define these two aspects of spirit. The following points should be noted about the connexion between the will and thought. Mind is in principle thinking and man is distinguished from beast in virtue of thinking. But it must not be thought that man is half thought and half will, and that he keeps thought In one pocket and will In another, for this would be a foolish idea. The distinction between thought and will is only that between the theoretical attitude and the practical. These, however, are surely not two faculties; the will is rather a special way of thinking, thinking translating itself into existence, thinking as the urge to give Itself existence. ^See above, pp. 14-19* 54 This distinction between thought and will may be described as follows. In thinking an object, I make it into thought and deprive it of its sensuous aspect; I make it into something which is directly and essentially mine. Since it is in thought that I am first by myself, I do not penetrate an object until I understand it; it then ceases to stand over against me and I have taken from It the character of its own which it had in opposition to me. . . . An idea is always a generalization, and generaliza tion is a property of thinking. To generalize means to think. . . . The variegated canvas of the world Is before me; I stand over against it; by my theore tical attitude to it I overcome Its opposition to me and make its content my own. I am at home in the world when I know it, still more so when I have understood It. . . . The practical attitude, on the other hand, begins In thinking, in the ego Itself, and it appears first as though opposed to thinking because, I mean, It sets up a sort of diremption. In so far as I am practical or active, i.e. in so far as I do some thing, I determine myself, and to determine myself simply means to posit a difference. But these dif ferences which I posit are still mine all the same; the determinate volitions are mine and the aims which I struggle to realize belong to me. If I now let these determinations and differences go, I.e. if I posit them in the so-called external world, they none the less still remain mine. They are what I have done, what I have made; they bear the trace of my mind. Such is the distinction between the theoretical attitude and the practical, but now the tie between them must be described. The theoretical is essen tially contained in the practical; we must decide against the Idea that the two are separate, because we cannot have a will without Intelligence. On the contrary, the will contains the theoretical In Itself. The will determines itself and this deter mination is in the first place something inward, because what I will I hold before my mind as an Idea; 55 it is the object of my thought. An animal acts by ' instinct, is driven by impulse, and so it too is practical, but it has no will, since it does not bring before its mind the object of desire. A man, however, can just as little be theoretical or think without a will, because in thinking he is of neces sity being active. The content of something thought has the form of being; but this being is something mediated, something established through our activity. Thus these distinct attitudes cannot be divorced; they are one and the same; and in any activity, whether of thinking or willing, both moments are present.10 The negativity contained in the idea of freedom is thus made explicit. First, since' thought and will are inseparable, the realization of actual freedom means that whatever is thought must be not only capable of being carried into action, but must actually be acted upon suc cessfully. On the other hand, because the individual acts in a context which is by nature limiting, not every thought can be carried into action .without restriction. Conse quently, there is a responsibility placed upon the think ing individual to arrange his thought so that whatever he wills is realizable under the given conditions. If this is not done, external restraints, which are a derogation of ^°The Philosophy of Right, pp. 226-27* See above, pp. 14-19 for references to other passages on this rela tion. 56 freedom, will be placed upon the individual. This is the factor which leads Hegel to say that "I am at home in the world when I know it, still more so when I understand it." In short, (l) I can be free only if I act in accordance with certain objective factors, and (2) I can act in accordance with these factors only if I realize them and understand them In their relationships to each other and to me. A second aspect of the negativity Is the fact that the desire to act Is not accidental to human being, but is necessary in order that the individual may become real. Subjective Spirit must transcend itself or It is not spirit. Spirit Is, only if It Is real; and it can become real only through action and objectification.-*-^ But this action is just what brings about the possibility of non-freedom and alienation. The full force of the negativity Implicit in human actions lies in the fact that, on the one hand the respon sibility for an act Is placed upon the individual himself, -*--*-Hegel does not hold the converse of either of these propositions to be true. lgThe Phenomenology of Mind, p. 422; The Philosophy of History, p. 68. while on the other hand he is not responsible for the inter pretations of his act given by other individuals. As for his own responsibility, the performance of any act is only a further determination of his self. Actions ' ’are mine, and the aims which I struggle to realize belong to me. . . . They are what I have done, what I have made; they bear the trace of my mind." This means that both the immediate and the remote consequences of the acts are attributable to the individual since the consequences are but further determinations of him. But since there is a possible dif ference between the interpretation given an act by its author and that given it by others, the action, although objective, is transitory. The author of the action, subse quent to the recognition and judgment of others, becomes something which he was not before others judged his action; but he is not responsible for the judgments and interpreta tions of others. Thus, action which belongs to human beings of necessity reveals both freedom and non-freedom simultane ously. The "purity" of the idea in the abstract has become a self-negating concept. The freedom of an individual is transitory and at the same time his responsibility and the 58 responsibility of others. The reason for this is made clear in the following passage. Here Hegel is using the term "work" to denote any action. The work is, i.e. it Is for other Individuals, and for them it is an external, an alien reality, in whose place they have to put their own, in order to get by their action consciousness of their unity with reality. In other words, the interest which they take in that work owing to their original constitution is other than the peculiar interest of this work, which thereby is turned Into some thing different. The work is, thus, in general something transitory, which is extinguished by the counter-action of other powers and interests, and displays the reality of individuality in a transi tory form rather than as fulfilled and accomplished.13 This passage makes explicit the factors which give rise to the negativity or dialectic of freedom. First, "the work 3^s." The action has become just as much a part of "reality" as any "material" object. This opens the act to the perceptions and judgments of others; because it has become part of the situation for others, there will be reactions to it. There are demanded on the part of all individuals the same responsibilities which relate to the performance of the original act in question. That is, the other Individuals must evaluate the act performed from the point of view of their own total situation. They must l^The Phenomenology of Mind, p. 427. 59 consider their own desires and needs and arrive at a deci sion commensurate with these factors. It is here that the difficulty arises. "The inter est which they take in that work owing to their original constitution is other than" the interest of the original actor. It is in fact necessary for the freedom of all concerned that the particular act be interpreted in this way, because no action of any particular individual has precedence over that of any other. Although the author of the act may consider the possible reactions to his act prior to acting, he cannot foresee all of the reactions which may occur. Nevertheless, the essence of freedom demands the satisfaction of particular interests in the face of this plurality of interests. The situation of a plurality of interests qua individual interests is further complicated by the concen tration of individuals into groups. Common interests draw individuals into groups which, in turn, differ according to these interests. The formation of these groups is the concretization of Objective Spirit through which Individ uals seek to fulfill themselves. But again negativity arises. 60 The community may, thus, on the one hand, organize itself into the systems of property and of personal independence of personal right and right in things; and, on the other hand, articulate the various ways of working for what in the first instance are par ticular ends— those of gain and enjoyment--into their own special guilds and associations, and may thus make them independent. The spirit of universal assemblage and association is the single and simple principle, and the negative essential factor at work in the segregation and isolation of these systems.^ These ’ ’systems" are what constitute civil society, the matrix which in turn constitutes individual freedom as it is seen for-itself in context. In these systems spirit (qua objective) transcends the individual (qua subjective), but only in the sense discussed in the last chapter.jn essence, civil society contains two elements. The concrete person, who is himself the object of his particular aims, is, as a totality of wants and a mixture of caprice and physical necessity, one principle of civil society. But the particular person is essentially so related to other particu lar persons that each establishes himself and finds satisfaction by means of the others, and at the same time purely and simply by means of the form of uni versality, the second principle is h e r e . l 6 l^Ibid., pp. 473-74. See also The Philosophy of History, pp. 75~96. •^Objective spirit is the creation of individuals who in turn immerse themselves in this creation. See above, pp. 17-18. •l^The Philosophy of Right, pp. 122-23. 61 These two elements constitute a collision between the particular and the universal. In the first two historical stages of the idea of freedom it did not occur. The oriental world had no freedom since there was no mutual recognition of freedom. The will of the despot was both the particular and the general will. The Greek world, on the other hand, contained an immediate relation between the individual and his city-state, a relation which was not sundered by individual strivings which tended to run counter to the needs of the whole.But Christianity had brought forth the principle of subjectivity which des troyed this harmony and which eventuated in the creation of civil society with its competitive structure.1® The immediate unity of particular and universal was replaced by the collision of individual wills. In the place of 17This Greek world, since it had arisen, flourished, and decayed, presented Hegel with a paradigm for the subse quent "odyssey" of the concept of freedom. See The Pheno menology of Mind,-pp. 466-99; The Philosophy of History, pp. 302-48; The Philosophy of Right, p. 221. For an explicit statement of the nature of the "immediate" rela tion, see The Philosophy of History, p. 167* For commen taries on the importance of Greek freedom to Hegel, see Hyppolite, Introduction ^ la Philosophie de l’Histoire de Hegel, pp. 25-31; Rosenzweig, op. cit., pp. 84-88. 1®The Philosophy of History, pp. 63* 170, 529-22, 529-30. 62 nomos and customary observance, there was substituted a need for "correct disposition" in regard to others and to the whole of the matrix. "But here we have no guarantee that the will in question [i.e., the particular will] has that right disposition which is essential to the stability of the State.nl9 _ . Historically, the French Revolution had external ized the internal striving for individual freedom begun by the German Reformation in religion.20 Along with this development came the industrial revolution, still in its incipient stage when Hegel wrote, but clearly evident. It was the resulting form of this latter revolution which solidified the conflict between individual wills. This historical development had brought the Idea of freedom to the stage which Hegel was analysing.21 The two elements which constitute civil society are mutually antagonistic and at the same time presuppose each other. The "universal aspect" is present in modern society just ■^rbid., pp. 559-60. It is for this reason that the particular will is differentiated in principle as well as in fact from the general will. 2QIbid., pp. 534-52. 21See above, p. 23- 63 because of the diversity of w i l l s . 22 To leave the analysis at this point, as the British "laissez-faire" school did, is to leave it at a stage of abstraction. The British were convinced that an orderly society would arise naturally out of this competi tive structure, and freedom for all would ensue. Hegel did not share this optimism. History was already giving evidence that freedom for all would not develop in civil society if the matrix were left to work "in accordance with natural l a w . " 2 3 x t was necessary to ask more specifically how particular wills were able to will the universal or general will while seeking only their own ends. The necessity for this question lay in the essential negativity of the act of objectification and in the fact that not all individuals were on an equal footing. A particular man's resources, or in other words his opportunity of sharing in the general resources, are conditioned, however, partly by his own unearned principle (his capital), and partly by his skill; this in turn is itself dependent not only on his capital, but also on accidental circumstances whose g^The Philosophy of Right, p. 129- 23For a summary and analysis of Hegel's critique of this "natural law" see Hyppolite, Introduction a la Philosophie de l'Histoire de Hegel, pp. 52-56. Later John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx found the same thing wanting in the laissez-faire analysis. 64 multiplicity introduces differences in the develop- ment of natural, bodily, and mental characteristics, which were already in themselves dissimilar. In this sphere of particularity, these differences are conspicuous in every direction and on every level, and, together with the arbitrariness and accident which this sphere contains as well, they have as their inevitable consequence disparities of individ ual resources and ability.24 This "natural Inequality" brings on the formation of classes, the solidification of which intensifies the interest grouping and therefore the negativity present In the society. When civil society is In a state of unimpeded activity, it Is engaged In expanding Internally in population and Industry. The amassing of wealth is intensified by generalizing (a) the linkage of men In their needs, and (b) the methods of prepar ing and distributing the means to satisfy these needs, because it is from this double process of generalization that the largest profits are derived. That Is one side of the picture. The other side is the subdivision and restriction of particular jobs. This results in the dependence and distress of the class tied to work of that sort, and these again entail the inability to feel and enjoy the broader freedoms and especially the Intellectual benefits of civil society.25 The sub-division and restriction is a self-perpetuating p r o c e s s . if left to work for Itself, civil society 2^The Philosophy of Right, p. 130. 25Ibid., pp. 149-50. 26Ibid., p. 150. 65 becomes self-destructive and destructive of actual free dom. Man qua man is not free, but again only some are free. However, it is not even true that some are free. What freedom becomes is a relation of master to slave, and the community can be likened to a herd of animals, each one needing the other.27 The abstract idea of freedom when examined as it is for itself, becomes both logically and existentially its own opposite--non-freedom. But this dialectic serves both a negative and a positive purpose. The positive aspect of the dialectical examination is the demonstration of the necessity of the Internal movement of the concept itself. The striving for actualization is motivated by the negative factor inherent in the abstract idea. The idea as it now stands is insufficient to reality. Any adequate idea of freedom must involve both the essence of abstract freedom and the limitations which are placed upon it in context. On the one hand, it is of the essence of man to be free, i.e., to make explicit what he is implicit ly. This means, at the least, that an individual's talents and desires must be allowed to come to fruition. On the g^The Phenomenology of Mind, pp. 229-40, 419-45. 66 other hand, there must be some regulation of the individ ual's actions so that the negativity inherent in any act may produce actual freedom, rather than frustration of action and therefore non-freedom. This regulation, how ever, can not be something externally applied, but must be internal to the desires and actions themselves if the individual is to be free. When there is consciousness on the part of an. individual of the reality of the negativity, i.e., of the idea as it is for-itself, the second act of transcendence occurs and the idea becomes notion.2® The subjective and objective are united and overcome and the problem of free dom, as it historically presents itself to the individual, is grasped. The alienation of his own creation is over come in the sense that the individual i s now conscious of this objective world as_ his own creation. The idea is grasped as it is in-and-for-itself and the moment of specu lation mentioned above constitutes the alienation as a problem.29 The problem is (l) to make possible the evolution 2®See above, pp. 17-20. 2^See above, pp. 51-52, of a societal matrix which will (2) make possible the development of individuals who will act so as to be free. It is not enough that the society merely remove external impediments to the existential development of the individ uals involved. There must also be present the factors which will aid development by providing channels through which they can understand and freely act in this social creation. Freedom from impediments only lays the ground work for development, but in no way equips the Individual to develop his real possibilities. In association with this "freedom-from" there must be freedom to develop the potentialities which exist for this individual in this society. This means that the individual must be able to develop himself In such a way that his needs and desires (particular will) are manifested in a manner which is com mensurate with life in society (general will). Private whim or selfishness, which runs counter to the real pos sibilities for development, is met only by frustration and rejection on the part of the acting individual or on the part of other Individuals concerned. The Individuals must, therefore, be given some means of making intelligent evaluations of these objective factors, their interrelations with each other, and their effects upon these individuals. 68 The problem is reduced to this: (l) the individ ual must have an accurate and intelligent evaluation of the situation and must desire to act according to this perception, and (2) the societal matrix must be one which affords both freedom from impediments and freedom to develop the capacities of the individuals, a matrix in which external obstructions are removed and positive sup port is given to the individuals for their personal development. The one limitation placed upon the activity of the matrix is that, no matter what it does or intends to do, the impetus for freedom must come from the individ ual, and the direction of development must be willed by the individual. The return of the idea to itself, the actualization of the concept of freedom as it is in-and-for-itself, is Immediately manifested in the state. The state is the actuality of concrete freedom. But concrete freedom consists in this, that per sonal individuality and its particular interests not only achieve their complete development and gain explicit recognition for their right (as they do in the sphere of the family and civil society) but, for one thing, they also pass over of their own accord into the interest of the uni versal, and, for another thing, they know and will the universal; they even recognize it as their own substantive mind; they take it as their end and aim and are active in its pursuit. . . . The principle of modern states has prodigious strength 69 and depth because it allows the principle of sub jectivity to progress to its culmination in the extreme of self-subsistent personal particularity, and yet at the same time brings it back to the sub stantive unity and so maintains this unity in the principle of subjectivity itself.30 The essence of the modern state is the constitution. The various branches of government and the statutory laws passed in accordance with the constitutional law are merely the immediate organs of the constitution. The constitution and its organs are the objective manifestation of both the individual's inner desires and the necessary dependence of individuals on one another. The constitution of the state is, in the first place, the organization of the state and the self related process of its organic life, a process whereby it differentiates its moments within itself and develops them to self-subsistence. Secondly, the state is an individual, unique and exclusive, and therefore related to others [i.e., to other states].31 The state is organic because the constitution 3°The Philosophy of Right, pp. l60-6l. See also the addition to this paragraph, ibid., p. 280; The Philoso phy of History, pp. 70, 86; Philosophy of Mind, pp. 131-32. Compare Rosenzweig, op. cit., p. 172; Copleston, op. cit., pp. 211-12. Since the state is the actuality of freedom, it, and not particular individuals, is the subject of history. See The Philosophy of History, pp. 96, 102. ^ The Philosophy of Right, p. 174. 70 organizes it.32 The idea of freedom as it is for-itself presents the problem of freedom: the necessity of over coming the inherent clash of individual, subjective wills, a clash which, if left to itself, develops into anarchy or oligarchy.33 The constitution organizes the essential interests of all in a public (i.e. objective) manner. As changes occur in civil society and new needs arise, the constitution, civil law, and the organs of government serve to mediate the new manifestation of the problem of freedom.34 32see William Wallace's note on this in The Phi losophy of Right, p. 364. Wallace's comment on the mean ing of organicism vis a vis the state is based on Hegel's discussion of reciprocity and the meaning of the organic given in The Lesser Logic, pp. 280-82. See also The Phi- losophy of History, p. 96; Philosophy of Mind, pp. 136-37* See below, ftn. 34. 33The Philosophy of Right, pp. 279, 283* 3^lbid., pp. 193-95, 291-92. nThe constitution is essentially a system of mediation." (Ibid., p. 292, addi tion to paragraph 180). It is for this reason that the essence of the modern state as Hegel saw it has been called "monarchical liberalism" by Lasson. See Friedrich, op. cit., p. xxiii. Since Hegel holds the constitution to be the essence of the state and to be essentially a mediation of the negativity of individual action, criticism of Hegel as a modern organicist and absolutist are unfounded. The state exists for individuals and not vice versa. Hegel's recognition of a general will as opposed to particular wills and desires as individuals are aware of them, does not make him an absolutist. See The Philosophy of History, pp. 76, 87; The Philosophy of Right, pp. 161-62, 280, 71 It is the purpose of the legislature to bring about these changes when necessary. The executive power rests in the hands of a civil service. The latter serves two functions: (l) to administrate the laws and (2) to advise the monarch on the constitutionality of various possible decisions.35 The sole proposition before the state is that every individual in the society must have the means and liberty to develop and realize himself according to his own capacities and that these means must be in such a form that the actions of individuals will coincide with the general will. The qualification that capacities can be mani fested or objectified only in certain ways means that 281. See especially ibid., pp. 157-60 where Hegel criti cises von Haller's theory of "might makes right." This is a reiteration of the fact that the state exists for the fulfillment of individuals. The tyrannical state cannot be justified by the concept of the modern state and the idea of freedom without compromising the latter. See Hassner, op. cit. 35The Philosophy of Right, pp. 188-98; Philosophy of Mind, pp. 140-41. See also The Philosophy of History, p. 568, for a picture of the nature of these servants of the people. In view of the supreme character of the con stitution, and the functions of the legislature and the executive, the much discussed monarch is left with little to do. Furthermore, he cannot act capriciously, but must always govern under law. See The Philosophy of Right, pp. 288-89. "rights" in some sense must be taken away from the individ ual. But the rights which the state does transgress are those abstract rights which will not, as a matter of fact, result in the individual's fulfillment because they are contrary to the demands made of free men if their freedom is to be concrete. It is simply necessary that one pay a price to live in a society. It does not mean that the state Is opposed to individuals or to civil society as such, but that these can exist only if the general will is acted upon. The general will, in turn, is what is objectified in the constitution and in civil law. Civil society is therefore not a failure and does not have to be discarded. Here Hegel and Marx, although sometimes in agreement, part company. The basis for true freedom lies In the negativity manifested in this society which had historically evolved. The destruction of feudal ism, the rise of Protestantism, and the hegemony of the market-place necessitated the mediation of the state; but at the same time they brought to reality the concept of the freedom of man qua man. Civil society only fails when it comes to the task of unification and a full adjustment of the rights and needs of every individual. This latter is the task of the state and therefore the state demands a 73 separation of itself from civil society. It has to rise above the competitive process in order to accomplish this task. In order to better understand the necessity of the separation of the state from civil society I shall repeat the two propositions to which the problem of freedom was reduced. 1. The individual must have an accurate and intelligent evaluation of the situation and must desire to act according to this perception. 2. The social matrix must be such that it affords the individual freedom from external obstructions and freedom to develop his capacities; that is, it must be a matrix in which external obstructions are removed and posi tive channels are given to the individuals for their per sonal development commensurate with societal life. Civil society falls short of realizing either of these demands. First, it falls to generate proper evalua tions of the individual and his situation. Although it makes him aware of his dependence both on his own needs and desires, and on gaining recognition from others, this perception is short-sighted because it is based on an atomistic social psychology. The actions which follow from 74 these perceptions accord with reality only so far as immediate gain or loss for him is concerned. Secondly, it fails in respect to the generation of a proper matrix for individual development. The matrix, in itself, gives rise only to negativity. The obstructions arising out of the negativity of the situation are the product of economic and social necessity rather than of human f r e e d o m . 36 This necessity, in turn, paradoxically rests on many factors of chance, such as birth, inborn capacity, and accumulated capital. It tends to construct classes and a class system which perpetuate the obstruc tions to freedom rather than mediate them. The state, on the other hand, is able to correct the perceptions of individuals because it is removed from the sphere of particular individual wants and needs in so far as its own self is concerned, but in contact with them through the governmental organs. Its task Is to mediate through the associations; that is, it deals with association For contemporary criticism along these same lines see Gunnar Mrydal, Challenge to Affluence (New York: Pan theon Books, Inc., 1963)> especially the chapters dealing with structural unemployment. Much of the contemporary non-Marxist criticism of ideas carried over from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is directed against the same points which Hegel found wanting. 75 as such, the generator of the general will.37 The state does not create an order which depends on egocentric rela tions; specific and general interest must be made to coin cide. Its duty, then, is to foresee the consequences of given types of association and action and rule accordingly. The laws of the state are constituted and originated by the recognition, on the part of individuals, of the inher ent negativity of public action in civil society. The state, therefore, does not act for individuals, nor does It force them into actions contrary to their own self-interest. The state exists only for the purpose of the ultimate realization of freedom; it is_ the concrete objectification of the consciousness of freedom arising out of the recognition of the problem of freedom. ^ 37This, of course, Is what rule under law has always meant to accomplish In principle. ~ ^The Philosophy of History, p. 70. See MacDonald, op. cit., p. 331* The general difficulty Involved in understanding Hegel on this point (see for Instance Popper, Russell, and Barker), and on the conception of the state in general as realized freedom, lies In the lack of under standing concerning the negativity contained in the Idea of freedom as it Is for-itself. Hegel’s detractors either take abstract right to be real freedom, or evince an optimism that abstract freedom will of itself become actualized merely through the workings of civil society. See for instance Barker, op. cit., p. 22. Hegel Is then supposed to "absorb” this "free" individual. But this view 76 The mere organization of the constitution and laws is, however, only the idea of freedom as notion in its immediacy. Freedom has come to be for-itself as it is in-itself only as object. The essence of freedom, i.e., the gratification of individual interests through action in civil society, is mediated through the offices of the state. The constitution and civil laws are instruments of education by means of which the individual is able consciously to will his own action in ‘accordance with the general will. They simply embody what is rational in civil society.39 existing state is imperfect in so far as it fails either to comprehend the general will or to make the general will effective through of freedom is just what Hegel tried to show to be unsound in the ' ’liberalism" of his day. The only alternative to this "liberalism" was not totalitarianism. Hegel saw in the essence of the state something different from both of these views. Compare The Philosophy of Right, p. 272 and The Philosophy of History, pp. 80-81 where Hegel makes it clear that morality, religion, et cetera "can become the subject of legislation [only when they are of such nature] as to permit of their being in principle external. But this was just Barker's own position. See Friedrich, on Barker, op. cit., p. xliv. 39-rhe Philosophy of Right, p. 165. See also Wallace's note to this paragraph, p. 365* 77 education. The possibility of the continued clash between par ticular and general will necessitates a final mediation of the general will as the state. The desires of individuals, made vocal through public opinion, have a dual character. Public opinion is a repository not only of the genuine needs and correct tendencies of common life, but also, in the form of common sense (i.e. all-pervasive funda mental ethical principles disguised as prejudices), of the eternal, substantive principles of justice, the true content and result of legislation, the whole constitution, and the general position of the state. At the same time, when this inner truth emerges into consciousness and, embodied in general maxims, enters representative thinking . . . it becomes infected by all the accidents of opinion, by its ignorance and perversity, by its mistakes and falsity of judgement. 4l ^°Ibid., pp. 156, 279, 281, 282-83* The Philosophy of History, p. 84. As I have said before, the state cannot be based on force, but must be accepted as rational. "Its only bond is the fundamental sense of order which every body possesses." ^ The Philosophy of Right, p. 204. See also ibid., p. 294 (the addition to paragraph 316), 294-95> 205-08; The Philosophy of History, pp. 96, 560, 563* It Is clear here that what constitutes the difference between public opinion and the essentiality of the laws is intelligence. See also The Philosophy of Right, pp. 285-86, 287-88. The many simply lack the intelligence to know what is their essential good and freedom, although they sense It before hand, and know it when they have it. The concept of uni versal education, which will be Dewey's addition to this analysis, was simply not historically available to Hegel. Nevertheless, the idea is there in Hegel In a germinal The mediation must come through the understanding of the individual of the essential truth contained in the state. Public opinion only suffers from the lack of an intelli gent basis. It is essentially correct because freedom as it is in-itself demands the satisfaction of particular needs. But if there is no rational basis for what are thought to be the ways of satisfying these needs, then activity grounded on this unfounded opinion will not as a matter of fact lead to satisfaction. Only if the particu lar will coincides with the general will, and only if the general will is recognized by individuals to be their own valid will as objectified in the constitution and the laws of the state, will actual freedom emerge. This constitutes Hegel's comprehension of the concept of freedom. In this philosophical (i.e. systematic) comprehension, the notion of freedom in its concreteness has become its own object. The comprehension of his own freedom brings man home into the world. The historical .and political creations of men, while for-themselves negativity and alienation, when comprehended become the substance of form. The one good thing he saw in England was that the aristocracy, who did have an education, held effective rule. See The Philosophy of History, p. 567- 79 men. This is philosophy as "the fullest blossom, the Notion of Mind in its entire form, the consciousness and spiritual essence of all things, the spirit of the time as spirit present in itself.But it is only the spirit of the time, "the standpoint of the present day, and the series of spiritual forms is with it for the present concluded."^3 Although philosophy cannot, qua philosophy, embody any predictions for the future, Hegel did venture to ‘ 'speculate" what the future would bring. As we shall see in the sequel, he was essentially correct. The final moment of mediation, that is the intelligent acceptance of freedom in the state as rational and the genesis of law in accord ance with this rationality, is the task which has, since Hegel, motivated liberalism. Hegel1s contribution to the explication and under standing of concrete freedom was the recognition of the negativity inherent in the concept. The negativity pre cludes the simple political solution of letting the laws of nature work themselves out in civil society, with a modicum of "interference" from political institutions. All ^■^See above, p. 12. ^^see above, pp. 13* 23- 80 institutions, and not only political institutions, are the ! s creation of spirit and therefore are all equally natural or, to see it from the opposite point of view, equally arbitrary and artificial. Abstract freedom is exactly that— an abstraction. Men must consciously and deliberate-^ recognize the negativity and alienation which freedom requires and must strive, through the self-mediation of J spirit, to bring about the positlvity inherent in this j i alienation. But this is only possible if it is recognized : that spirit, regardless of what it is called, is the self transcendence of individuals-in-community. The hard and fast opposition of individual and society or of individual and state is itself an abstraction arising out of the conception of abstract freedom. In concrete reality the individual, society and the state are a unified whole, constituted by the self-contained existence of human- being. CHAPTER III THE HISTORICAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HEGEL AND DEWEY There are two ways In which the relationship between philosophers can be seen. The first Is the ques tion of the conscious relationship, i.e., the relationship in so far as the later thinker was aware of his agreement and disagreement with the earlier thinker. It is this question with which I shall be concerned in this chapter. The second way entails an investigation of the philosophi cal relationship between the two systems of thought. This second inquiry may or may not come to the same conclusion as does the first, but it Is of greater philosophical importance than the first. I shall be concerned with this second approach only at the end of this chapter In a brief inquiry Into the relationship between Dewey and Hegel vis-a-vis the purpose and object of philosophy. In subsequent chapters I shall look further into the philosophical relationship. 81 82 Hegel died In 1831; John Dewey published his first philosophical writings in 1882. In the fifty-one years between these dates, Hegel's system was continuously in view. It was interpreted variously— revised, accepted, or rejected. In considering the relationship between Hegel and Dewey, only one "school" of Hegelianism Is of impor tance— that of the British. The British Hegelians were many and had varied interpretations of Hegel, but only Thomas Hill Green had a direct relationship to Dewey and Hegel.1 Dewey was introduced to Hegel through his teacher at Johns Hopkins, George S. Morris. Morris, who had a distinct preference for German philosophy and respected British philosophy only of the period subsequent to Green, considered the British somewhat misguided in their inter pretations of Hegel, and urged Dewey to return to Hegel himself to study him. For this reason, Dewey never had any strict allegiance to the British interpretations and is not ■krhe most important representatives were Green, F. H. Bradley, Bernard Bosanquet, and the Caird brothers. See J. N. Findlay, op. cit., pp. 17-27 for a good appraisal of the un-Hegelian Hegelianism of this school. identified as a "neo-Hegelian."2 Green is important to us, however, for two reasons. First, his analysis of social and political phenomena evidenced the struggle which Hegel had predicted for the future course of freedom. The liberal democratic tenden cies inherent in the spirit of the British civilization had been enriched by the movements for "social justice" and the utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill. The "purity" of Lockean liberalism had begun to disintegrate, and at ! least in theory, the problem became more complex. Hegel's j social and political analysis, together with utilitarianlsrri, I i appeared on the scene in an attempt to fill the gap. I Green's theory represented the attempt, previous to that i of Dewey and of which Dewey was aware, to employ the Hegelian analysis in an explicitly democratic context. Secondly, Green is of importance because Dewey, who ! scarcely ever mentioned other British Hegelians in his f writings, used Green in both a negative and a positive way j to assert his own position. Green had therefore both an j I great deal of philosophical confusion would probably disappear if no one were counted an Hegelian or Platonist except Hegel or Plato respectively. I do not wish to show, or even to imply, in the sequel that either Green or Dewey were Hegelians. They were influenced by Hegel, but were philosophically their own men. ■ 84 ; historical and a philosophical relationship to both Hegel and Dewey. Green, like Hegel, began with the individualr and an analysis of self-consciousness. Like Hegel also, he conceived man's moral ideal as the full realization of himself in terms of the nature of his own individual being . j Through intellectual striving, man achieves fuller ration ality and, with a higher state of rational being, a higher , state of moral being. A moral action is a rational action, for every action has a motive, and any motive i includes both the idea of the action itself and the reason^ j for commiting the act. The reasons for an action are never merely some relation of means to end, but a perception of j i the whole situation confronting the individual, both means j ! | and end. Since the moral ideal is personal self-realiza tion, the motive for any act is constituted by the percep- : tion of the individual that, in the given situation, a given act will contribute to his further realization. j Our ultimate standard of worth is an ideal of per sonal worth. All other values are relative to j values for, of, or in a person. To speak of any j progress or improvement or development of a nation or society or mankind except as relative to some 85 greater worth of persons is to use words without meaning.3 While the only good is the good of the individual, this does not connote an egoistic position. Like Hegel, Green recognized the fact that an individual, qua human being, is always in society, and therefore it is through society and its institutions-that he finds his realization.: Green insisted that "without society, no persons",* and "without persons, without self-objectifying agents, there could be no such society as we know."^ He then goes on to ; explain this more fully. j I Only through society is anyone enabled to give that ' effect to the idea of himself as the object of his j actions, to the idea of a possible better state of himself, without which the idea would remain like that of space to a man who had neither the sense of sight or touch. Some practical recognition of per sonality by another, of an "I" by a "thou" and a "thou" by an "I", is a necessity to any practical consciousness of it as can express itself in act. However, this does not mean that Green held the individual | i to be wholly dependent upon society or the state, as would | an authoritarian. The relation was one of reciprocity. j ■^Thomas Hill Green, Prolegomena to Ethics (5th ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906), p. 210. ^Ibid., p. 218. 5Ibid., p. 218. 86 Social life Is to personality what language is to thought. Language presupposes thought as a capacity but in us the capacity of thought is only actualized in language. So human society presupposes persons in capacity, subjects each capable of conceiving him self and the bettering of his life as an end to him self. But it is only in the intercourse of men, each recognized by each as an end not merely a means, and thus having reciprocal claims, that the capacity is actualized and we really live as p e r s o n s .6 Thus Green agreed with Hegel's conception of the relation between individuals and their society. The self per se and not only by convention, a social self. But Green maintained that the ultimate community to which the individual human being belongs is mankind, not only a limited geographical area bound together as a nation. The individual, when reasoning out his moral actions, must consider all individuals who will be in any way affected by this action. His own development is inseparable from the development of human capacities in general. It is here that Green introduces the moral ideal 1 ' ' I i and abandons the temporal and spatial concreteness of | Hegel's analysis. "Mankind" does not have the objective ! j institutions which a nation has and which, for Hegel, j j served as the concrete objectification of the spirit of j 6Ibid., p. 210. 87 i the people of a nation.7 This lack of concreteness effects I the introduction of the conception of the self as it has been perfected for the moment on the one hand, and on the other, the self as ideal. The "progress" of man consists in the "filling up" of an eternal consciousness which constitutes the ideal. The introduction of this bifurca tion was in no way artificial; for what he was confronted i with was both the Hegelian analysis of the self as a pro- i cess and the British tradition of a fixed human nature. i The result in Green was a juxtaposition of the two which completely satisfied neither one, but which was an attempt j t to see the truth of both in relation. Green's view of the inherently social nature of man precluded his acceptance of the atomistic analysis of I his British predecessors, however. More weight was given j to Hegel's analysis of the organic nature of national institutions than to the analysis of the British. Politi- j I cal freedom was only partial freedom because the political institutions were only a part of the institutional struc ture affecting individuals. It was possible, for instance, ^It is here also that Dewey begins his attack on Green. See below, pp. 93"95* 88 to have political freedom while at the same time living under economic serfdom. As long as an individual was imprisoned by his economic situation in a society for which economic institutions were paramount, he could not develop himself and was not free in actuality. Consequently, Green agreed with Hegel that society ; was called upon, as it had been earlier in the case of the need for political freedom, to furnish an environment such that individuals would be given the positive means to i attain effective freedom, i.e., capacity for the realiza- i tion of the ideal. But because of his other orientation j ; toward political freedom as recognized by British liberal- ! ism, he also felt that there should be a minimum of ! j government action commensurate with individual development. His attempt to distinguish between proper and improper state action is ineffective, however, because of his i double orientation. Those acts only should be matters of legal injunc- j tion or prohibition of which the performance or j omission, irrespectively of the motive from which it proceeds, is so necessary to the existence of a j society in which the moral end stated can be j realized, that it is better for them to be done or omitted from that unworthy motive, which con- ! sists in fear or hope of legal consequences, than 89 ! not to be done at all.® In other words, although a law cannot compel one to be moral, since this is a matter of a motive originating in the individual's own understanding, law must function to create a society in which certain minimum standards are maintained. The idea again emerges that the state opposes the individual, and that fear, although an "unworthy motive," is the basis of state action. Green could not j accept Hegel's positive analysis of the state because he maintained that a universal consciousness, and not the i i state, was the final temporal objectification of the j individual. Instead, the implications of the old social j contract theory re-emerged: the standards to be enforced j j by the state are those necessary to maintain the minimum j I standards necessary for social existence. The decision as ! to what these minimum standards were referred us to the ; moral ideal. ! In spite of the duality of reference to the ideal | and to concrete institutions, Green employed Hegel's j o I °Thomas Hill Green, Lectures on the Principles of ! Political Obligation (New York: Longmans, Green, and j Co., 1901), p. 38. 90 conception of negative and positive freedom. But again, the necessity and concreteness of these freedoms lay only in the ideal consciousness. The claim or right of the individual to have cer tain powers secured to him by society and the counter-claim of society to exercise certain powers over the individual alike rest upon the fact that these powers are necessary to the ful fillment of man's vocation, to an effectual self- devotion to the work of developing the perfect character in himself and o t h e r s .9 No one therefore can have a right except (a) as a member of society, and (b) of a society in which some common good is recognized by the members of j the society as their own ideal good, as that which : should be for each of them. The capacity for being j determined by a good so recognized is what con- j stitutes personality in the ethical sense.19 i For Green, then, right is composed of two elements.j The first is a justifiable claim to freedom of action, that! i i is, ability to assert individual impulses in order to j realize one's own inner powers and capabilities. This, in ; I i turn, is a claim to participate in society and to contri bute to the common good as ideally recognized. The second ; : I I element is the factor of recognition discussed above in | ■ • i ! connection with Hegel's conception of freedom. There must j 9Ibid., p. 41. 1QIbid., p. 44. be recognition on the part of individuals that what one individual does in order to realize his own capacities is Justified from the point of view of others affected in any way by his actions. Only if both of these elements are present can a society function properly; that is, only if both of these conditions are fulfilled can one have both "healthy individuals" and a "healthy society." Without recognition, society is torn into self-defeating factional-: ism. Without the impetus for action flowing from the ; individual himself, there is no moral justification for ! actions. But the duality of reference to both an unful- | filled ideal and a partially fulfilled state did not allow for any further discussion or analysis of the concrete i l working of such a society. j | The hiatus between Green's Hegelian tendencies and | his heritage derived from the liberal tradition of Locke | was never healed. Had he not died at an early age, he ■ ' might have been able to develop his theory. As it stood, j \ ‘ ; ! | he recognized the social character of the individual and I rejected the atomistic psychology of his British predeces- i j : sors. Both freedom from obstructions and freedom to 1 1 I , j develop the self through positive institutions were I considered necessary for concrete freedom. But, in 92 deference to the concept of an ideal human nature, he referred the individual beyond the concrete world of temporal institutions to a universal consciousness which was in the process of being "filled up." The focal point was "mankind" and not the concrete and actual historical manifestation of spirit. Nevertheless, Green’s analysis of freedom was a further development of the stage to which Hegel had come. "Liberalism" was no longer the atomistic variety of the French Revolution and of Capitalism as Adam Smith had con ceived it. The development of liberalism in Green and in the society out of which he philosophized designated the clash of the "many" with "the influence over the people which is exercised by the intelligent members of the com munity," i.e., of democracy and aristocracy.11 Green's theory reflected the view which Hegel described as one which demands that all government should emanate from their [the people’s] express power, and have their express sanction. Asserting this Formal side of freedom— this abstraction— the party in question allows no political organization to be firmly established. The particular arrangements of the government are 11Hegel, The Philosophy of History, p. 563- 92 deference 10 the concept of an ideal human nature, he referred the Individual beyond the concrete world of temporal institutions to a universal consciousness which was in the process of being "filled up." The focal point was "manKind” and not the concrete and actual historical manifestation of spirit. Nevertheless, Green's analysis of freedom was a further development of the stage to which Hegel had come. "Liberalism'* was no longer the atomistic variety of the French Revolution and of Capitalism as Adam Smith had con ceived it. The development of liberalism in Green and in the society out of which he philosophized designated the clash of the 'many" with "the influence over the people which is exercised by the intelligent members of the com munity," i.e., of democracy and aristocracy.il Green's theory reflected the view which Hegel described as one which demands that all government should emanate from their [the people's] express power, and have their express sanction. Asserting this Formal side of freedom-- this abstraction--the party in question allows no political organization to be firmly established. The particular arrangements of the government are 11Hegel, The Philosophy of History, p. 563- 93 forthwith opposed by the advocates of Liberty as the mandates of a particular will, and branded as displays of arbitrary power. The will of the Many expels the Ministry from power, and those who had formed the Opposition fill the vacant places; but the latter having now become the Gov ernment, meet with the hostility from the many and the same fate. Thus agitation and unrest is per petuated. 12 This is the problem which Hegel predicted would constitute the next stage in history. 13 Perhaps the terms in which Hegel described the theory of "opposition government" were a bit strong, but he never claimed the ability to predict accurately. In so far as he described the essence of the struggle between aristocracy and democracy he was correct. John Dewey, belonging to a later age and a differ ent civilization, continued the work which Green had begun. But in order to do this, he had to leave Green and Hegel behind him in so far as historical developments demanded this. In 1889 he gave a favorable review of Green's ethical and social philosophy.1^ Three years later, 12Ibid. 1^See above, pp. 24-25* For an idea of Hegel's awareness of the trend in British "reforms" and the matrix out of which Green would later work, see The Philosophy of History, p. 566. l4iiThe Philosophy of Thomas Hill Green," Andover Review, XI (1889), PP- 337-55* 94 however, he began to criticize him.45 main criticism focused on Green’s account of the perception of the moral ideal. He was referring to the separation between the self as ideal and the self as it had been perfected to the moment. He maintained that Green's theory made it virtual ly impossible to commit a moral act since any act was only a partial fulfillment of the ideal in terms of a particu lar desire. Green's moral motive was, in Dewey's mind, a bare ideal of perfection, and could not be used in a con crete way to guide and direct ethical conduct. This specific criticism of Green's theory of self- realization reflected a characteristic which Dewey was to retain throughout the development of his thought--the insistence on the abstractness and unreality of any dual ism. Green had, in essence, retained a dualism which was not warranted by his analysis of the individual as a con crete social individual. Concerning such dualisms in Green and in others of the British Hegelian school, Dewey ■^"Green's Theory of the Moral Motive," Philosophi cal Review, I (1892), pp. 593-612; "Self-Realization as the Moral Ideal," ibid., II (1893), PP* 652-64. It must be remembered that Dewey is here attacking Green's explicit formulation of a theory of self-realization, not self- realization in general as a moral motive. 95 had the following to say: "The current ethics of the self [are] falsely named Neo-Hegelian, being in truth Neo- Pichtean. In order to place the relationship between Hegel, Green, and Dewey in clearer perspective, I shall quote a passage from Hegel on this point. The infinity of reflection [i.e., of the self into the ideal, back into the self, to the ideal, etc.] is only an attempt to reach the true infin ity, a wretched neither-one-thing-nor-the-other. . . . The finite, this theory tells us, ought to be absorbed; the infinite ought not to be a negative merely, but also a positive. That ’ought to be' betrays the incapacity of actually making good a claim which is at the same time recognized to be right. This stage was never passed by the systems of Kant and Fichte, so far as ethics are concerned. ^ Hegel is here criticizing Fichte for the same reason that Dewey called Green and the other British neo-Hegelians neo-Fichtean. Dewey correctly saw in Hegel's system an avoidance of this type of dualism, and his agreement with Hegel on this point exemplifies his "return to Hegel," circumventing neo-Hegelianism. Nevertheless, Green's philosophy did serve in a positive manner as an elucidation of the meaning of Hegel's social and political analysis for ■^Hegel, The Lesser Logic, p. 176. The same criticism is made in The Phenomenology of Mind, p. 289- 96 an explicitly democratic and liberal orientation; but the negative service of Green's analysis which caused Dewey to return to Hegel is important and must not be overlooked. The two influences are interrelated: the negativity of the approach to an ideal underlined the need to retain the concreteness of the relationship between individuals and their institutions. During the 1890's Dewey was offering, among others, a course in ethics and a seminar in Hegel. In a passage in the Schilpp volume he states that he tried, during his early period, to interpret Hegel's categories "in terms of 'readjustment' and 'reconstruction'"; but he came to realize that "what the principles actually stood for could be better understood and stated when completely emancipated from Hegelian garb."l8 Dewey's consciousness of his relationship to Hegel remained throughout his philosophical career. The retro spective analysis he made in 1939 for the Schilpp volume contains a broad outline of this relationship as he saw it. l^Paul Arthur Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy of John Dewey (2d ed.; New York: Tudor Publishing Co., 1951), P- 18. 97 Nine years before this Dewey volume appeared, Dewey had contributed to a collection of essays on contemporary American philosophy in which he stated that Hegel had left "a permanent deposit" in his thinking. ^ He explains what was meant by this. Hegel's idea of cultural institutions as an 'objec tive mind' upon which individuals were dependent in the formation of their mental life fell in with the influence of Comte and Condoreet and Bacon. The metaphysical idea that an absolute mind is manifested in social institutions dropped out; the idea, upon an empirical basis, of the power exercised by cul tural environment in shaping ideas, beliefs, and intellectual attitudes of individuals remained. It was a factor in producing my belief that the not uncommon assumption in both psychology and philoso phy of a ready-made mind over against a physical world as an object has no empirical support. It was a factor in producing my belief that the only possible psychology, as distinct from a biological account of behavior, is a social psychology. With respect to more technically philosophical matters, the Hegelian emphasis upon continuity and the func tion of conflict persisted on empirical grounds after my earlier confidence in dialectic had given way to skepticism.20 •^john Dewey, "Prom Absolutism to Experimental!sm," Contemporary American Philosophy, ed. G. P. Adams and W. P. Montague (New York: Macmillan Co., 1930), Vol. II, p. 21. 20Schilpp, The Philosophy of John Dewey, pp. 17-18. Specific commentary on the discrepancies in Dewey's view of Hegel will be made in the next chapters. Suffice it to say here that there was a difference between Dewey's conscious debt to Hegel and the actual relationship. Dewey retained some of the "Pichtean" interpretations of Hegel's metaphysics and dialectic. 98 His tendency to interpret Hegel's Absolute and the dialectic as alien to his own position only appeared slow ly. 21 in a review of Renan's The Future of Science he made the following observations. Many things in Renan's The Future of Science tend, to arouse interest. The way in which the great philosophical formulations of Germany . . . were continued by passing over into the attitude and atmosphere of science, especially of historic sci ence, is a point fastening attention. . . . "The great progress of modern thought has been the sub stitution of the category of evolution for that of Being. . . . [Renan]" And when we go on to con sider the law of evolution: from the undifferen tiated homogeneous, the syncrete, through the multiplicity; when we consider this, the transfer ence of the Hegelian doctrine becomes even more marked. It is the same law, only considered now as the law of historic growth, not as the dialectic unfolding of the absolute.22 This was written in 1892, the same year In which Dewey began to attack Green and neo-Hegelianism. The .signifi cant phrases in this assessment of Hegel are the phrases "continued by passing over Into the attitude and 21He had reached this Interpretation at least by the time he wrote The Quest for Certainty. See The Quest for Certainty (New York: Minton, Balch and Co., 1929). ^In Characters and Events, ed. Joseph Ratner (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1929), Vol. I, pp. 18-19. Compare Hegel's discussion on law and appearance in The Phenomenology of Mind, pp. 184-213# and The Lesser Logic, pp. 241-57- 99 atmosphere of science" and "the transference of the Hegeli an doctrine." These do not signify a change in doctrine, but, rather, a new perspective and a new language employed in the explication of the same insights. This way of seeing Hegel was consistent with Dewey’s appraisal of the relationship between a philosophy and its historical con text. Such a transference was facilitated because Hegel had been responsible to the science and history of his time; and the developments of science and history, far from being discontinuous, were themselves constituted by just such a transference. Dewey and Hegel can be seen, so to speak, as holding up the philosophical end of this development. Although there certainly is a difference between the positions of the two thinkers, it is one of development, not disenchantment on the part of D e w e y .23 23see Dewey's analysis of the relation of philoso phy to the historical context in which it appears: Recon struction in Philosophy, p. 26; "The Role of Philosophy in the History of Civilization," Philosophical Review, XXXVT (1927), pp. 1-3* Compare this with above, p. 12. It is here, however, that one of the most important differences between Hegel and Dewey lies. Dewey saw philosophy as not only having the task of understanding, but also of chang ing, this culture. Nevertheless, both saw philosophy as rooted In Its cultural and spiritual matrix. See below, pp. 106-108. Because of the cultural dependence as seen by both thinkers, the "change" in Dewey Is not simply due to a change in the outlook of the physical sciences, as 100 Dewey still retained a sense of the concreteness of the Absolute and the dialectic in the first decade of the twentieth century. It is truer to Hegel, in the reviewer's mind, as well as more satisfactory in itself, [to lay] greater stress upon the positive significance of conflict and the suffering that attends It, in the constitution of the active and worthful uni verse, instead of tending to give a negative Interpretation of conflict, as due to the "finite” over against the complete, or to "appearance" over against Reality.24 In 1906 he continued on the same note. In this essay he was explicitly concerned with dualism In regard to the epistemology of belief. Sensationalist and idealist, positivist and transcendentalist . . . have been at one in their devotion to an identification of reality with something which connects monopolistically with passionless knowledge, belief purged of all per sonal reference, origin, and outlook, into pure cognitional objectivity,--mechanical, sensation al conceptual, as the case may be.25 Morton White would suppose, i.e., the Incorporation of the new scientific method, but a change in the whole philoso phical object. See Morton White, The Origin of Dewey's Instrumentalism ("Columbia Studies in Philosophy," No. 4 ed. Department of Philosophy, Columbia University; New York: Columbia University Press, 1 9 4 3 P* 18. p|i ^Review of World Views and Their Ethical Implica tions, by W. R. Benedict, International Journal of Ethics, XIV (1904), p. 390. ^"Beliefs and Realities," The Philosophical Review, XV (1906), p. 116. 101 On the usual interpretation of Hegel, it would seem that this criticism would hold especially against him, sub stantiating White's claim of a break between Dewey and Hegel brought on by the Incorporation of "scientific method. "^6 However, there is a footnote appended to this passage. Of course, I except Hegel from this statement. The habit of interpreting Hegel as a Neo-Kantian, a Kantian enlarged and purified, Is a purely Anglo- American habit. This is not the place to enter into . . . Hegelian exegesis, but the subordination of both logical meaning and of mechanical existence to Geist, to life in its own developing movement, would seem to stand out In any unbiased view of Hegel. At all events, I wish to state the debt to Hegel of the view set forth in this paper.27 To maintain that Dewey broke with the Hegel of the British is to.state an obvious truth; but this does not constitute a break with Hegel. Hegel's Phenomenology presents Itself as something dead come to life In Dewey's discussion of the place of reason In the human situation. Because reason is a scheme of working out the mean ings of beliefs In terms of one another and of the consequences they import In further experience, convictions are rendered the more, not the less 2^White, op. cit., especially pp. 96-125. ^ The Philosophical Review, XV (1906), p. 116. 102 amenable and responsible to the full exercise of reason. . . . Thus we are put on the road to that most desirable thing,--the union of fullest acknowledgement of moral powers and demands with thoroughgoing naturalism.28 The close relationship to Hegel's discussions of truth is obvious if the misconceptions of Hegel's view of truth have been cleared up.29 Although one cannot justly main tain that Hegel already had in his grasp the pragmatic theory and criterion of truth, such a statement is closer to actual fact than the view that Hegel simply had a logi cal coherence theory of truth, that the only true state ment was a statement of the totality of "the Absolute" (usually taken in Fichtean sense), and that all other forms of truth are useless appearances and abstractions. The import of Dewey's statement that reason is a "working out of the meanings of beliefs in terms of one another and the consequences they import in further experience" is that it clearly shows the relationship between their two ways of viewing truth and Dewey's recognition of this relationship. A surface difference appears because of the dif ference in the use of language; but Dewey was aware, at 28Ibid., p. 128. 29gee above, pp. 28-29* 35-36. least in these years, that it was essentially a difference in language. The "German philosophy" is done in "outland ish and alien vocabulary [because] the ideas used are not as yet naturalized in the common consciousness of men"; the values dealt with "are not thoroughly at home in human experience, have not yet found themselves in ordinary social life and popular science, are not yet working terms justifying themselves by daily experience and applica tions."^0 Such an appraisal and apology of Hegel's thought is wholly in keeping with Hegel's view of the necessity of a return to consciousness of the concrete results of objectification. This is far from an attack on Hegel, but underlines Dewey's view that he was "refashioning" Hegel's position. In 1917 Dewey's view began to change. The essence of his relation to Hegel remains unchanged in his mind, but he began to stress a difference between himself and Hegel concerning the dialectic and the Absolute. In his contribution to Creative Intelligence he discusses the relationship between pragmatism and Hegel. When professed idealism turns out to be a narrow pragmatism— narrow because taking for granted the Characters and Events, Vol. I, p. 59* 104 finality of ends determined by historic condi tions— the time has arrived for a pragmatism which shall be empirically idealistic, proclaim ing the essential connexion of Intelligence with the unachieved future— with possibilities Involv ing a transfiguration.31 His alienation from "some aspects of Hegel" and his inter pretation of Hegel's Absolute and his method have definite ly changed here. Hegel was narrow, according to Dewey, because he asserted that an objective absolute was unfold ing itself in history. Pragmatism, on the other hand, pro claims an unachieved future. Dewey now began interpreting Hegel as a FIchtean, something he had criticized earlier In his philosophical career. The separation between prag matism and idealism became wider by 1928, although he still maintained some positive connection with Hegel. The "Ger man philosophy" had envisioned man as emerging from "a state in which he was wholly immersed In 'nature' to a state in which 'spirit' is wholly triumphant. " It is submitted that whatever Is empirically verifiable in such a doctrine is better stated In terms of the constant remaking of the physi cal environment and the living organism which ^Dewey, et al., Creative Intelligence: Essays in the Pragmatic Attitude (New. York: Henry Holt and Co., 1917), P. 29. 105 occurs when the latter come within the scope of the culture carried in human society. It is a fact rather than speculation that physical and animal nature are transformed in the process of education and incorporation of the means and consequences of associated political, legal, religious, industrial, and scientific and artis tic institutions. "Spirit" in the doctrine referred to is a transcendent and blind name for something which exhibits itself empirically as that phase of social phenomena called civili zation . 32 These two passages suggest that there is more of a difference than that of language between his position and Hegel's. There is no longer a transference, but an opposi tion between the two positions. Although Hegel is still given credit for his insights into man and his cultures, these insights are misplaced in an abstract metaphysics. History also became abstract and objective to men, and it, not men themselves, determined itself. Finally, Dewey now ; viewed Hegel as "stopping history and the world" in his own time and attributing a finality to his views. Dewey had fallen into the same trap which had entangled other commentators on Hegel. The trap was a misunderstanding of Hegel's view of philosophy. In Dewey's case, he was misled by Hegel's refusal to discuss the 32, , Social as a Category," The Monist, XXXVTII (1928), p. 176. 106 future In philosophy. The relationship between their philosophies was complicated by the fact that they did not agree on what constituted philosophizing. In one sense, they were closely related; in another sense they were poles apart. Dewey's view of philosophy contained both, an agree ment and a disagreement with Hegel. Dewey lost sight of their positive relationship. I shall quote two passages from Dewey which show this double relation. When it is acknowledged that under guise of deal ing with ultimate reality, philosophy has been occupied with the previous values embedded in social traditions, that it has sprung from a clash of social ends and from a conflict of inherited institutions with incompatible contemporary tenden cies, it will be seen that the task of future phi losophy is to clarify men's ideas as to the social and moral strifes of their own day. Its aim is to become so far as is humanly possible an organ for dealing with these conflicts.33 Take the history of philosophy from whatever angle and in whatever cross-section you please, Indian, Chinese, Athenian, the Europe of twelfth or the twentieth century, and you find a load of tradi tions proceeding from an immemorial past. . . . The preoccupations may be political and artistic as In Athens; they may be economic and scientific as today. But In any case, there is a certain intellectual work to be done; the dominant interest working throughout the minds of masses of men has to be clarified, a result which can be accomplished only by selection, elimination, reduction, and formulation; It has to be forced, exaggerated, In •^Reconstruction jn Philosophy, p. 26. 107 order to be focused, to be, that is, intellectually, in consciousness, since all clear consciousness by its very nature marks a wrenching of something from its subordinate place to confer upon it a central ity which is existentially absurd. . . . The life of all thought is to effect a junction at some point of the new and the old, of deep-sunk customs and unconscious dispositions, brought to the light of attention by some conflict with newly emerging directions of activity. Philosophies which emerge at distinctive periods define the larger patterns of continuity which are woven in effecting the longer enduring junctions of a stubborn past and an insistent future. Philosophy thus sustains the closest connection with the history of culture, with the succession of changes in civilization. . . . But philosophy is not just a passive reflex of civilization that per sists through changes, and that changes while per sisting. It is itself a change; the patterns formed In this junction of the new. and the old are pro phesies rather than records; they are policies, attempts to forestall subsequent d e v e l o p m e n t s .34 Dewey and Hegel agreed on the historical and social roots of philosophy. A philosophy is "a child of its time." They also agreed that It has its roots In experi ence and should have nothing to do with "the ideal." The 3^Philosophy and.Civilization (New York: Minton, Balch and Co., 1931), PP* 6-8. There is a selection of Dewey's writings on the nature of philosophy Included In Joseph Ratner (ed.), Intelligence in the Modern World (New York: Modern Library, 1939), PP* 245-74. See also, Dewey, "Psychology and Philosophic Method," Mind, XI (1886), pp. 153-73; Characters and Events, Vol. I, p. 58; "Dewey's Lectures in Japan," Journal of Philosophy, XVI (1919), PP* 357-64; Creative Intelligence, p. 29; Philosophical Review, XXXVI (1927), PP* 1-9* 108 task of philosophy is to comprehend: "With respect to subject matter, philosophy is an attempt to comprehend."35 But while for Hegel this was the only task of philosophy, for Dewey it was only part of the aim. He had fully adopted Bacon's dictum that knowledge was power; the knowledge obtained in philosophy was to be used "as an organ or instrument of social direction."36 Thus, while Hegel would only make oblique remarks, qua philosophizing, concerning the future, it was Dewey's express aim that what was comprehended about man and his socio-historical setting was to be used to direct his future. This differ ence in their respective views of philosophy was trans ferred and held to imply a difference in content. Hegel became, for Dewey, an abstract metaphysician, while he himself was empirical and concrete. Hegel was reactionary 35p)eWey, Democracy and Education (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1916), p. 378. ^ Journal of Philosophy, XVI (1919), p. 359* See also Schilpp, The Philosophy of John Dewey, pp. 17-18. For good analyses of the interrelationship of the two aspects in Dewey see Sidney Hook (ed. ), John Dewey: Philosopher of Science and Freedom (New York: The Dial Press, 1950), pp. 106-17; Joseph Blau, Men and Movements in American Phi losophy (New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1952), pp. 3^5-55; William H. Werkmeister, A History of Philosophical Ideas in America (New York: The Ronald Press Co., 19^9), PP* 5^1- 61. However, the relationship of these aspects to Hegel Is not made explicit. 109 or conservative, while Dewey Is liberal or revolutionary. Men are absorbed into an objective and transcendent absolute for the former, for the latter they are free spirits with an open future; one has a closed system, the other an open one.37 Their respective views of the task of philosophy does not, of itself, warrant such a juxtaposition of the two. As we saw In the last chapter, although Hegel did not discuss the future qua philosopher, he did not close the future. The alienation which "the world" presents to man Is an alienation of his own making, not one transcendent to man in an absolute sense. Hegel's metaphysics is as 3^This confusion is what has prohibited an accur ate analysis of the philosophical relationship between Dewey and Hegel vis-a-vis freedom. Dewey himself was not able to see Hegel as not any of these things, at least in the former's mature period. This change towards Hegel we have seen above. For misunderstandings on the part of interpreters on this point, see John Blewett (ed. ), John Dewey: His Thought and Influence (New York: Fordham University Press, i960), pp. 1-9; Sidney Hook, The Meta physics of Pragmatism (Chicago: Open Court Publishing Co., 1927 )> P* 7; George Raymond Geiger, John Dewey in Perspec tive (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958)> P* 183; Marvin Farber (ed.), Philosophic Thought in France and the; United States (University of Buffalo Publications in Philosophy; Buffalo: University of Buffalo, 1950), p. 494; Kenneth Benne (ed.), Essays for John Dewey's Ninetieth Birthday (Urbana: Bureau of Research and Service, College of Education, University of Illinois, 1950), p. 21. 110 concrete as Dewey's; discussions of God, for instance, are discussions of the Absolute as it is in its ideal state, and can be the subject for philosophizing only in so far as the ideal is made concrete by men. Finally, Hegel's poli tical views were a reflection of the state of political life in his time. ^ tHegel's political views are certainly not democratic in the sense in which contemporary democrats take democracy; but neither had democracy come to be, when Hegel wrote, what it is today. 4 A philosophical analysis of the relationship between the two men must take this into account. The fact that Dewey conceived the task of philosophy as embracing both the descriptive and analytic and the normative, does set him apart from Hegel. But this fact cannot support inferences to their respective content, specifically that Hegel's view of freedom was therefore antithetical to Dewey's. Hegel did see the problem with which Dewey.would be confronted and in his own analysis placed the reason for the failure of democracy in the lack of education on the part of the people.3S bureaucrats and legislators who for him fulfilled the mission of the state did so just 3®See above, pp. 77“78* Ill because they had an education and they could rise above the subjective and self-destructive views of those in civil society. Dewey was conscious of much of this positive rela tionship,, as are many of his commentators. But the posi tive relationship is limited to an agreement on basic factors in their respective social analyses and their mutual abhorrence of dualism in psychology and metaphysics. In the words of Benne, there Is a ''striking resemblance" between the two; "his mature philosophy retains something of the color, temper and movement, If no positive doctrine, of his early Hegelianism."39 In the following chapters on Dewey I would like to examine their respective positions free from any predis position to consider them as antithetical except in their views of what constituted philosophizing. The preceding analysis of Hegel will be of importance in the making of this comparison; especially the characteristic of con creteness which is found in Hegel. But no less important is the fact just discussed: namely, that although the two QQ Benne, op. clt., pp. 19, 21. 112 disagreed on the limits of philosophizing, this is not to say that they disagreed in any other way. CHAPTER IV DEWEY: THE HUMAN SITUATION Dewey's analysis of the human situation lay at the basis of his social and political theory and is the founda tion for his concept of freedom. If I am to show that Dewey structured his analysis of the problem of freedom on Hegel's concept, Dewey's explanation and description of the human situation will be germaine to my thesis, for his analysis of the problem of freedom and of the human situa tion are inseparable. The question arises at this point concerning the criteria to be used in deciding what constitutes a reformulation of a problem which does not Intrinsically alter the original, as opposed to one which does. It would be a simple task to show agreement between the two men if Dewey had given exactly the same analysis in exactly the same language and had come to exactly the same conclusions as did Hegel. Unfortunately, this is not the case; Dewey neither intended to do this nor could he have, given his 113 114 historical thesis concerning the origins of a philosophi cal position. It will be fruitful, in view of this necessary difference, to make explicit the methodological principles which will govern my argument. There are four conditions which must be met In order to establish a positive rela tionship between two philosophical positions. The first is that the universe of discourse must be the same for both philosophers. This is a very general condition fulfilled by almost all philosophers, including the two under con sideration. The universe of discourse is in this case the "human situation." The human situation is nothing more or less than all that which enters into human experience, both the "objective" factors and the "subjective" factors, and of these, both the physical and spiritual or mental aspects. The second condition is that the problems involved must have the same foci In both positions. That is, the basic assumptions or starting points must be identical. 1The necessity for this "difference" is further determined by the fact that Hegel also held this historical view of the origins of a philosophy. Until these are agreed upon or some satisfactory compromise is reached, all further comparison is futile; for the philosophers involved are not really discussing the same things even though the first condition is fulfilled.^ Dewey, for instance, saw this in the case of his arguments with the political school of Locke and the British empiri cists. His basic disagreement with them did not lie in political theory, but in regard to the psychological and ontological analyses of human existence. When Dewey dis cussed "individuals" he was not talking about the atomistic individual of the British, but about a "social individual." Thus, the two could make identical statements in the poli tical and social sphere, yet mean diametrically opposed things by these statements. Before any comparison or argument was possible, Dewey had first to settle the psychological question. The starting points, therefore, must provide a sound basis for comparison and discussion. A third condi tion is also necessary. Not only must the starting points ^Por an excellent discussion of this and the following conditions 3ee Henry W. Johnstone, Jr., Philosophy and Argument (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1959)* 116 be agreed upon, but as the analysis progresses, there can be no further assumptions or assertions made on the part of one of the philosophers which are incompatible with the position of the other at that point in the analysis. In other words, If the basic assumptions are the same, but further assumptions or analyses of phenomena arise which will not allow for the operation of another given pheno menon as explained by the other philosopher, then the question In point is no longer the immediate discussion, but the validity of the particular assumption or analysis through which the difference arises. This condition is a corollary to the second; If it Is not fulfilled, then dis cussion beyond the point where the basic disagreement arises is fruitless. It must be noted that this does not mean that the two positions cannot involve different phenomena or different explanations of the same phenomena, but only that the two phenomena or explanations must be compatible, I.e., not mutually exclusive. The first three conditions only present us with a criterion to decide whether or not a comparison is feasi ble. In so far as they are fulfilled, a relation between the two positions can be sought. The fourth condition is not absolute, but relative. The two positions will be In 117 positive relation to each other in so far as the results of the respective analyses yield like results when applied to particular situations in the given universe of dis course. Correspondingly, they will be in a negative rela tion in so far as they yield unlike results when applied to such particular situations. The present thesis will be substantiated in so far as all four conditions are fulfilled in a positive manner. Dewey's formulation will have to (l) involve the same uni verse of discourse as Hegel's; (2) involve the same foci; (3) not contain any further assumptions or analyses which are incompatible with those of Hegel; (4) lead to the same results when applied to particular manifestations of the problem of freedom. The first three of these must be ful filled completely; the fourth to some extent.3 The first condition is clearly fulfilled. Both Dewey and Hegel were involved in the same universe of dis course, namely, the relations of men to each other in society. The remaining three conditions are not as obviously ^These conditions are, in addition, compatible with the methodological views of both Hegel and Dewey. 118 satisfied. Part of what is at least an apparent disparity in their respective analyses of the human situation is necessary and is due to the different historical mileaux of the two men. If they differed substantially in their positions, then there was no positive relationship between them concerning the idea of freedom. Hegel's belief In the reality of the dialectic and In the necessity for dialectical examination of concepts presents only one aspect of their apparent disagreement. Where is the dialectic in Dewey? The answer to this and other ques tions will appear In the subsequent analysis of Dewey. The Influence of evolutionist theory and of William James are presented by White, Hook, and other com mentators as evidence for a real break with Hegel. Dewey himself gave credence to this assessment In part. How ever, the analysis of Dewey In the preceding chapter offered evidence that there was not a break with Hegel, but a reassessment of him. The question here is, then, whether or not these other Influences changed the starting point for social and political analysis, I.e., the picture of the human situation. One of the basic propositions of evolutionary theory was that all beings exist in environment, and that 119 the specific environment belonging to any individual or species has both a positive and a negative* both a con structive and a destructive, influence on its life activi ties. Accordingly, the basic descriptive proposition in any concrete analysis of the human situation is that that which is given for analysis is, in the case of man, man-in- environment. Dewey accepted this basic proposition as the starting point for social and political anslysis.^ As was pointed out above, however, mere verbal agreement is not enough to substantiate actual agreement. In Democracy and Education, a work which Dewey later called the best summary of his position up to that time (1916), he defined environment as consisting of "those conditions that promote or hinder, stimulate or Inhibit, the charac teristic activities of a living being."5 This Is to be interpreted in the broadest possible way: It means that anything which in any way enters into the life activities of the being, whether it be organic or inorganic, animate or inanimate, spiritual or physical, is a part of his ^Human Nature and Conduct (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1922), p. 16. 5Democracy and Education, p. 13. environmental factor. These conditions, furthermore, are in relation to the being qua organic relations, i.e., the relation between them is immanent, not transcendent. This is contrary to the presuppositions of the atomistic psychology. The words 'environment,1 'medium' denote something more than surroundings which encompass an individ ual. They denote the specific continuity of the surroundings with his own active tendencies.^ This continuity is constituted by a relation of mutual adaptation. The process of adaptation is not simply the adaptation of the activities of the individual to his environment, but also an adaptation of the environment to the activities of the individual.7 The relation is "organic," that is, it is one of interaction or, in the language of Dewey's last period, a relation constituted by "transactions." The environment modifies behavior, which latter, in turn, modifies the environment. Both modifi cations are simultaneous; one never has the one without the other. This description of the matrix man-in-environment was seen by Dewey as constituting a correction of the 6Ibid., p. 13. 7ibid., p. 56. 121 orthodox evolutionary theories.^ There are, then, two factors to he considered In any analysis of Individuals, both in respect to their natures and to their activities. On the one side, it means special disposition, temperament, gifts, bent, or inclination; on the other side, it means special station, situation, limitations, surroundings, opportunities, etc. Or, let us say, it means specific capacity and specific environment. Each of these elements, apart form the other, is a bare abstraction and without reality. Nor is it strictly correct to say that individuality is constituted by these two factors together. It is, rather, . . . that each is individuality looked at from a certain point of view, from within or from without.9 First of all, Individuality Is not something dependent upon only the capacities of the given individual. This was ^"Evolution and Ethics," The Monist, VII (1893), pp. 321-41. The eighteen years between this article and Democracy and Education saw no essential change In this position nor In the feeling that this was an essential correction to evolutionary theory. ^Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics (New York: Hillary House, 1957)> P» 97* This Is an exact reprint of the edition of 1891^ published by Register Publishing Com pany, Ann Arbor. It Is clear that this Is not merely an analysis peculiar to his earlier years. Compare Democracy and Education, p. 14; Human Nature and Conduct, pp. 51-52; : Ethics (1st ed. rev.; New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1932),: pp. 372-73, 378, ff. This also underlies Dewey's "new Individualism." See Individualism, Old and New (New York: Minton, Balch and Co., 1930). 122 essentially the view of the atomistic and dualistic individ ualism to which Dewey objected. Hegel had also objected to the same conception of individuality. Dewey is maintaining simply that there are two sides to individuality, capacity and environment. In so far as objective environmental fac tors enter into the life process of the individual, they go toward constituting his individuality and loose their aspect of objective transcendence. If an individual is somehow given different capacities, he will be a different person than before. On the other hand, if he is placed In a different environment, he will be a different person to a degree dependent upon the degree and nature of the change In environment. Each aspect taken by itself as an explana tory tool for the examination of individuality Is an abstraction, because each Individual is_ his capacities and environmental factors simultaneously. This means that the individual Is in no way pre formed on the side of capacities nor is he presented with a pre-formed set of environmental factors. Individuality ; Is a process which can be viewed from two aspects.1° The l°Compare Dewey’s statement in the Schllpp volume, quoted above, p. 97- distinction here is vital to an understanding of Dewey. Different capacities and needs (the inner aspect) in the "same" environment will result in different individuals, because the "same" environment is essentially not the same, but different. This is not a contradiction. His point is that when the set of capacities "A" interact with environment "C" the environment itself is changed. What might appear the same environment is not the same when the set of capacities "B" interacts with it as it is when set "A" does. This is the case because different capacities and needs cause different adaptation of and to the "given" environment, thus making that environment essentially dif ferent in both cases. The same is true of two different "environments" when confronted by the same set of capaci ties. In both cases, the resulting individuality depends upon the permutation or configuration of capacities, needs, and environmental factors. The resulting configuration is an organic whole. To give a concrete example, if an artist and a farmer confront and interact with a "given" environment, the "same" environment factors mean different things, will be used in different ways, and will be left in a different form after the confrontation by the respective men. For 124 all purposes of meaning and action, the environment is dif- / ferent in each case, and from this "same" environment come different individuals as a result of the interaction. On the other hand, the particular environment of the artist will interact with his capacities and needs and will yield a result different from what would have been the case had the artist had different environmental factors enter into his growth as an individual and as an artist. Environ ment can frustrate and destroy, or nourish and shape, the realization of given capacities and needs. Conversely, needs and capacities can grasp and develop, or ignore and destroy, the environment. Individuality is the focusing of the reciprocating process of adaptation. What the individual is, is determined by the internal or organic permutation of environment, capacity, and need. The explanation of individuality from the point of view of one of these aspects alone yields an incomplete or false result. The conception of either side as independent of the other (except existentially) equally leads to a false conception of the human situation. The individual is this interaction. The fact that Dewey accepted this analysis of the nature of Interaction placed him in a position of .125 disagreement with many who examined evolutionary theory. For Dewey, no decisive break occurred in the evolutionary process when human beings came on the scene. For some theorists, ethical action was the exclusive property of men, and was the result of man's entry into the historical process. But ethical actions were generically different from the struggle for survival which was manifested In the lives of beings "lower" than man. Dewey could not agree with this; the fact that men, as a species, exhibited dif ferent capacities than did other species meant only that the nature of the process of survival changed. There was still a struggle, but the ways and means of successful survival through adaptation changed. This In no way Implied that human beings were outside the scope of the evolutionary process, but only that the specific manner of adaptation was altered. Thus there was a continuity between those beings Immersed In nature and those In human society.11 This concept of individuality and of the funda mental nature of the individual's situation is Identical to ■^This is the basis for the "empirical verification of the Idealist thesis of continuity in transition. See above, pp. 104-105* Hegel's, except for language. The basic "given" for Hegel was experience, the basic matrix which was constituted by the subject-object relationship. The reality of the dialectic is derived from the internal (experience as a whole) interaction of subject and object. The suggestion of epistemic bias was removed by Dewey's use of the con cepts of evolutionary theory rather than subject and object. This change in language presents the situation more clearly, but does not go beyond what Hegel had per ceived since the latter had never meant experience to be contained only by the knowing process. Like the interplay between subject and object, that between capacity, need and environment is one of constant redefinition on either side. The synthesis of the two results in the formation of individuality, the concrete person. Thus, the language of the dialectic has disappeared, but the process itself is retained. The individual is a dynamic process, not a static substance. The synthesis resulting from any encounter is momentary, for the individual, formed by past action, is constantly confronted with new needs and environmental factors and the process continues. The general form of the human situation gives sub stantially the same starting point for both Hegel and 127 Dewey. But this is only a bare outline of the constitution of the individual. The details of this situation roust be sought in order to fill the third condition necessary for a comparison of Hegel and Dewey. A systematic review of Dewey's analysis must begin with the analysis of the individual from the side of environment. This does not mean that environment is some thing finished and separate. It is worth repeating that Dewey conceived environment and capacity only as different perspectives of the individual. An examination of the individual from the perspective of environment involves the analysis of individuality as a demand of environmental factors upon capacities and needs. But this is merely the obverse of the examination of individual qua capacities and needs. The important point is, although we can analyse from the different perspectives, we cannot discuss environ ment without simultaneously dealing with capacity, and vice versa. Dewey's reason for beginning with the analysis of environment is that, although the individual is both born into environment and endowed with certain capacities and needs, the former is, at the time of his entry into it, already relatively systemmatized, while the latter is not. 128 Given the nature of human beings when they are born, they are In a state of relative passivity, compared to later stages in their lives. But this is true to some extent throughout their lives; the initial impact comes from the "existing" environment and the individual can at best try to anticipate this impact. Part of the environment of men is the physical universe. But there are more than just physical factors stimulating capacities and needs— there are also social stimuli coming from the specific social environment. This social environment is not generically different from the physical; it is not even subordinate to the latter. The social environment as it affects an individual to a large extent controls and determines the ways in which physical factors play a part in the formation of individuality. The "social" is "the widest and richest manifestation of the whole accessible to our observation."3-3 The orientation which men have toward their environment is a result of Human Nature and Conduct, p. 61. See also Freedom and Culture (New York;g7 P. Putnam's Sons, 1939)* PP. 19~20; The Public and Its Problems (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1927), p. 80. 13The Monist, XXXVIII (1928), p. 177- 129 their simultaneous involvement in the social and physical environment. The lack of recognition of this immanence of the social had, according to Dewey, caused many of the "prob lems" in the history of social and political thought. The denial or ignorance of the intrinsic and basic rela tion of an individual’s capacities to his total environ ment had led to false theories which embraced, and attempted to solve, pseudo-problems. He used the theory of Rousseau as an example of this sort of thing. The essence of the "Social Contract" theory is not the idea of the formulation of a contract; it is the idea that men are mere individuals, without any social relations until they form a contract. . . . The fact is, however, that the theory that men are not isolated non-social atoms, but are men only when in intrinsic relations to men, has wholly superseded the theory of men as an aggregate, as a heap of grains of sand needing some factitious mortar to put them into semblance of order. Men as we know them are, as a matter of fact, in social relations as men, not as a matter of artificial contract. The individual with which Rousseau and Locke and others -^Ethics of Democracy ("University of Michigan, Philosophical Papers," Second Series, No. 1; Ann Arbor: Andrews and Co., 1888), p. 6. 130 began was "an abstraction arrived at by imagining what man would be if all his human qualities were taken away."1^ But it is the human being with his human qualities which is of importance in social and political analysis. The abstraction, like all abstractions, is useless in respect to a realistic examination. The individual is, then, a social Individual and nothing else. His "world of action" is a world "in which the individual is,one limit, humanity the other. Between lie all sorts of associative arrangements."16 The social environment is like any other environment, and any factor in it has the potential for affecting the formation of any given human need or capacity. It is not a normative judgment that conduct is social, but a descriptive one. Conduct may be judged socially good or bad, but it is always social in nature. Given the starting point of the social individual, we have what seems to be a mere de facto association. If •^Ibld. t p. 7. see also Individualism, Old and New, p. 81. " 1 Ethics (1st ed.; New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1908), p. 430. By making "humanity" one end of the scale, there Is the possibility of falling Into Green's difficul ty. But as we shall see Dewey does not do this. 131 the analysis rested here, we would have the useless tautology that a social individual is a social individual. But the nature of association is a process. Man is not merely de facto associated, but he becomes a social animal in the make-up of his ideas, sentiments and deliberate behavior. What he believes, hopes for and aims at is the outcome of association and intercourse.17 The social environment itself is the result of association and is constituted by associations. Society is many associations, not a single organi zation. Society means association; coming together in joint intercourse and action for the better realization of any form of experience which is augmented and confirmed by being shared. Hence there are as many associations as there are goods which are enhanced by being mutually communicated and participated in.18 These associations are not non-natural accretions, tacked on to some kind of non-social individuality. Each particu lar association and form of association serves a different particular purpose, which in turn is defined by the condi tions out of which the association grew. The purpose of association is to set free and ^The Public and Its Problems, p. 7H. ^Reconstruction in Philosophy, p. 205- See also ibid., p. 207; The Public and Its Problems, p. 27. 132 develop capacities and needs: both the possibility and realization of needs and capacities are derived from the process of association. All meaning and purpose which an association has, it has only by virtue of ascription. There is value inherent in association as such, but the various manifestations of it depend on the specific situa tion for specific value. One form of association may be of value at one time and place in history, while, at another time and place, it has no value or even a negative value. "Both the individual and the institutionally organized may be said to be subordinate" to this active process.19 It follows from the nature and purpose of association that both are subordinate. The individual is subordinate because he remains a brute animal without the characteristics of a human being except in and through intercourse and association. It is true that he may physically resemble a human, but this fact itself is not 1^Reconstruction in Philosophy, p. 207• 133 not sufficient to define him as human.20 There Is a complicated process of formal and informal education involved in the development of a human and it is the institutions and associations of which the society is com posed which foster this education. That is to say, it is the associations in society which form and constitute the attitudes, dispositions, abilities and disabilities of a concrete personality.2^ This is not to say that all human qualities are to be explained solely by the environment; 20It is, of course, the further development of the individual beyond the mere physical resemblance which is of importance. The case studies done by psychologists and sociologists in the past thirty years which deal with "feral children" and isolation and restriction in environ ment have gone far in examining the results of social and physical isolation in regard to the development of human beings. See Leonard Carmichael (ed.), Manual of Child Psychology (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1954), especially Chapters 3, 4, 15, and 19. See also J. L. Gewirtz, "Social Deprivation: a Learning Analysis," Symposium, Dependency in Personality Development, A.P.A. Congress, New York (1957)J D. Beres and S. J. Obers, "The Effects of Extreme Deprivation in Infancy on Psychic Struc ture," Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, V (195°), P* 212; W. Rennies, "Infant Development Under Conditions of Restricted Practice and Minimum Social Stimulation," Genetic Psychology Monographs, XXIII (1941), pp. 143-89; K. Davis, "Extreme Social Isolation of a Child," American Journal of Sociology, XLV (1940), pp. 554-65. 21The Monist, XXXVIII (1928), pp. 161, 169-7°. See also Problems of Men, p. 62. 134 this would be an abstract analysis. All that Dewey Is claiming here is that Individuality comes only as a result of interaction, which involves both capacity and environ ment . This process of association is circular in nature. The organic structure of a man entails the forma tion of habit, for, whether we wish it or not, whether we are aware of it or not, every act effects a modification of attitude and set which directs behavior. The dependence of habit-forraing upon those habits of a group which constitute cus toms and institutions is a natural consequence of the helplessness of infancy.22 Habits are formed by the individual's contact with institu tions and these institutions in turn are reenforced or changed by the individuals and their habits. These institutions, on the other hand, are also subordinate to the process of association. They are justi fied only in so far as they foster and promulgate habits which actually do allow the individual to confront the environment successfully, that is, in such a way that he will develop himself. The process of association is their raison d'etre, and if they no longer serve this process, they exist "illegitimately." 22The Public and Its Problems, p. 159- 135 The general relationship of environment (objective) to individuality Is summed up In the following statement. Singular persons are the foci of action, mental and moral, as well as overt. They are subject to all kinds of social influences which determine what they think of, plan, and choose. The con flicting streams of social influence come to a single and conclusive issue only in personal con sciousness and deed.^3 Dewey divides the activity which takes place in this process into two classes: private actions and public actions. The distinction is made on the basis of the nature and distribution of the consequences of the actions. Private actions are those which have only direct conse quences; that Is, only those persons engaged In the associ ated activity are affected by the action. Public actions, on the other hand, are those actions which have indirect consequences as well and which affect others beyond those immediately concerned.2^ When the consequences of private actions are per ceived by others, there is little interest in them other than a possible Interest in becoming a member of the particular association. In the case of public actions, 23Ibid., p. 75- 24Ibid., p. 12. 136 the reaction Is different. The consequences of these latter actions affect individuals who have no control over the actions themselves, and a need arises for some institu tion or means of controlling these actions and their conse quences. "When indirect consequences are recognized and there is an effort to regulate them, something having the traits of a state comes into existence."25 The state as well as the voluntary associations of society becomes a part of individuality because it has an effect in the formation of individuality. It is "the organization of the public effected through officials for the protection of the Interests shared by its members."2^ Through it, the fundamental terms and ways of organizing within the society are fixed.27 Those indirectly and seriously affected for good or for evil form a group distinctive enough to require recognition and a name. The name selected is The Public. This public Is organized and made effective by means of representatives who as guardians of custom, as legislators and executives, Judges, etc., care for its especial interests by methods intended to regulate the conjoint actions of individuals and groups. Then and in so far, g5lbid., p. 12. 26Ibid., p. 32. 27Ibid., pp. 53-54. See also Ethics (1908), pp. 451-52. 137 association adds to itself political organization, and something which may be government comes into being: the public is a political state. The state can be compared to the conductor of an orches tra, who makes no music himself, but who harmonizes the activities of those who do produce it. The effect which the state has on the capacities and needs of individuals is twofold. On the positive side, if the laws and regulations of the state are followed, the individuals who comprise the public can count on certain consequences following from certain actions. On the nega tive side, if there are violations of the laws and regula tions, or if certain public acts do not yet come under the control of the state, then the consequences of these actions cannot be counted on or predicted, and the public may be affected in a manner which delimits the functioning of the process of individuality. In such a case, correc tive measures are taken by the state either to punish, if there has been a transgression of existing laws, or to bring the actions committed under the regulation of the state. Those actions which are not public in character are left to the discretion of individuals or the voluntary 2^The Public and Its Problem, p. 42. associations to which they belong. The individual, man-in-environment, is thus con stituted by his creation of, and participation in, his social matrix. The question of the details of this par ticipation are further filled out by an examination of the individual from the viewpoint of his "inner side," viz. the effect of the already formed capacities and needs upon further environmental factors. According to Dewey, men act in and upon the environment in two ways: through thought and through action. Thought and action are but two different moments of the process involved in the satisfaction of capacities and needs. Although these two moments are distinguishable, they are inseparable. Thought "is the ideal act, conduct is the executed insight."^9 This is an early formulation of the formula that an idea is a tool for action, while the action is merely the expression of ideas. Thought and action are merely the complementaries of each other. Historically, thinking was conceived for the most 29"Moral Theory and Practice," International Journal of Ethics, I (1891).* P- 188. See also Journal of Philosophy, XVI (1919)> P- 362. In this later article again the language changes, but not the concepts. 139 part as deliberation; but this is only one aspect of the activity which precedes overt acts. Deliberation, impulse and habit are all involved in the genesis of an act. In every waking moment, the complete balance of the organism and its environment is constantly interfered with and as constantly restored. . . . Life is interruptions and recoveries. . . . Nor mally, the environment remains sufficiently in harmony with the body of organized habits to sus tain most of them in active function. But a novel factor in the surroundings releases some impulse which tends to initiate a different and incompati ble activity, to bring about a redistribution of the elements of organized activity between those [which] have been respectively central and sub sidiary. . . . Now at these moments . . . the disturbed adjustment of organism and environment is reflected in a coming to terms of the old habit and the new impulse.30 Habit and impulse, for the most part, instigate activity without the aid of deliberation. The reason for this is to be found in an analysis of the nature and generation of habits. Habit is the mainspring of human action, and habits are formed for the most part under the influence of the customs of a group. The organic structure of man entails the formation of habit, for, whether we wish It or not, every act effects a modification of attitude and set which directs future behavior. The dependence of habit-forming upon those habits of a group which constitute cus toms and Institutions is a natural consequence of OQ Human Nature and Conduct, pp. 178-79. 140 the helplessness of I n f a n c y .31 The organic relation between need, capacity and environment is well exemplified here. A habit is an acquired predisposition to ways or modes of response which are a result of enculturation and which are necessary for an efficient and adequate response to the environment. The environment is usually relatively constant, and habits will usually suffice to institute proper responses to the stimu lus from the environment since these habits were originally formed in order to incorporate the environment, forming individuality. An action of the environment upon the individual generates an order so that the capacities and needs might meet the environment: the one simply redefines the other. Habits are not, of course, particular actions, but modes of response to s t i m u l i . 32 The primary description of interaction, then, is that man is a being who responds to his environment, both social and physical, which in turn also responds to him. Capacity and need, on the one hand, and environment on the other, become concrete only when focused in an individual. ^ The Public and Its Problems, p. 159* 32Human Nature and Conduct, p. 42. 141 But Impulses are Indiscriminate and blind. In a period in which "life has been interrupted" the impulse which normal ly accompanied the particular habit of response is not present, and a confusion results from the simultaneous presence of a usual method of response and an Impulse which is incompatible with this habit. Since impulse is "closer" to the actual situation, it is the impulse which directs our movements and action. It furnishes the focus about which reorganization swirls. Our attention in short is always directed forward to bring to notice something which is immanent but which as yet escapes us. Impulse defines the peering, the search, the inquiry. . . . During this search, old habit supplies content, filling, definite, recognizable, subject-matter. It begins as vague presentiment of what we are going towards. As organized habits are definitely deployed and focused, the confused situation takes on form, it is "cleared up"--the essential function of intelligence. Processes become objects.33 The conflict between old habit and new impulse brings "intelligence" into action. Thought is therefore not always present, but lies in the interstices of habit. The office of intelligence is to bring the conflict into harmony by (l) deploying various habits and impulses before acting overtly, (2) observing and deliberating on the various consequences resulting from the proposed use of 33Ibid., p. 180. 142 these habits and Impulses, and (3) choosing that combina tion which will allow for a satisfactory response to the environmental stimuli. There are two factors, then, in the process of thought as it is related to overt action. First, there is deliberation; secondly, there is choice. Dewey describes deliberation in the following way. Deliberation is an experiment in finding out what the various lines of possible action are really like. It is an experiment in making various com binations of selected elements of habits and impulses, to see what the resultant action would be like if it were entered upon. But the trial is in imagination, not in overt fact. The experi ment is carried on by tentative rehearsals in thought which do not affect physical facts outside the body. Thought runs ahead and foresees outcomes, and thereby avoids having to await the instruction of actual failure and disaster.34 The selection of the various combinations of impulse and habit depends in part upon past experience and in part upon the ability of the individual to construct an adequate solu tion to the problem or disturbance. The second factor in this process is choice. Choice is described by Dewey as "the emergence of a uni fied preference out of competing preferences."35 3^Ibid., p. 190. 35ibid., p. 193. 143 It is a great error to suppose that we have no preference until there Is a choice. We are always biased beings, tending in one direction rather than another. The occasion of delibera tion is an excess of preferences, not natural apathy or an absence of likings. We want things that are Incompatible with one another,* therefore we have to make a choice of what we really want of the course of action, that is, which most fully releases activities.36 When a choice is made, the Individual receives an adequate stimulus to overt action and he acts. Choice presents us with an "end" for our subsequent act. However, this "end" is not something lying outside of the immediate action. The ends, objectives, of conduct are those fore seen consequences which influence present delibera tion and which finally bring it to rest by furnish ing an adequate stimulus to action. They are not, strictly speaking ends or termini of action at all. They are terminals of deliberation, and so turning points in activity.37 V The result of the action may be successful or unsuccessful, depending upon the choice. An "ideal" choice, or the limiting concept of choice, is one in which the environment, present habits, and impulses are all equally taken Into consideration and weighed in delibera tion. "The actual outcome of an impulse depends upon how 36Ibid., p. 193. 37Ibid., p. 223. 144 It Is interwoven with other impulses. This depends, In turn, upon the outlets and inhibitions supplied by the social environment."3® Choice is reasonable and successful to the degree that the different competing tendencies are actually harmonized with the environment. On the other hand, choice is unreasonable and arbitrary, and stands little chance of success, If one of the tendencies, either habit or Impulse, is held with such Intensity that it over rides all others and Is acted upon despite the opposition of the environmental factors and of the other tendencies. Success in terms of a real solution to the problem at hand is unlikely because the decision to act is made contrary to other subjective and/or objective factors.39 There is no conflict between reason and desire. Reasonableness is in fact a quality of an effec tive relationship among desires rather than a thing opposed to desire. It signifies the order, perspective, proportion which Is achieved, during the deliberation, out of a diversity of earlier incompatible preferences.^0 The real opposition is between routine, unintelligent 38lbld., p. 95. 39jbid., p. 193. 4°Ibid., p. 194. 145 habit, and intelligent habit. The latter is the outcome of a process of successful adaptation of impulses and habits to the objective conditions in which they are immersed. This does not mean that one is chained helpless ly to objective conditions to which needs and capacities must be adapted; for the process of adaptation is mutual. All this does mean is that an attempt must be made to take all revelant factors of individuality into consideration. A situation demanding deliberation is one which calls for conscious and imaginative invention, not simple mechanical response. Unintelligent habit, on the other hand, is a mechanical, inflexible, and stagnant reaction. When a conflict does arise, either the agent tenaciously applies old habit in spite of the conflict, or he allows one Impulse to override his other impulses, in both cases ultimately defeating his own purpose of resolving a conflict. Intelligence, then, is an event, not a source or substance. It "converts desire into plans based on assembling facts and analysing them."^ It Is bound on 4lIbid., p. 254. 146 the one hand to his capacities and needs. When a choice is made and subsequently acted upon, a change is brought about both in the objective situation and in the individ ual's needs and capacities. This change constitutes the process of individuality. This means that "reality" is a process, not a static state of "Being." Both the "self" and the "objec tive world" are a process which is being completed in every encounter between needs, capacities and environment. "Every genuine accomplishment effects a new distribution of energies which have henceforth to be employed in that for which past experience gives no exact instruction."^2 This view of reality as a process has two consequences. First, individual agents are what they have done. That is, the individual's personality is constituted, at any given moment, by the "complex, unstable, opposing attitudes, habits, impulses which gradually come to terms with one another, and assume a certain consistency of configuration."^3 The direction of the process is deter mined by the process itself, i.e., by the nature of the ^2Ibid., p. 284. ^Ibid. , p. 138. 147 configuration constituting an individual. If the individ ual employs habit intelligently, the configuration assumes a more or less well integrated pattern. If, on the other hand, the individual's conflicting habits and impulses are left In a state of conflict, the direction of development will be erratic, and will tend either to sustain or to Intensify the conflict, thus causing a direction of development which is self-defeating both in respect to the individual and the environment itself. The second consequence of the description of reality as an open-ended process is that in and through the various actions of individuals the environment itself is re-formed. Thus, we are brought to the same point at which we finished the discussion of Individuality from the perspective of environmental factors: the social environ ment Is nothing more than the process of association, the result of the interaction of individuals. Because the human situation is of this nature, for Dewey there Is no such thing as the problem of the relation between the individual and society. We might as well make a problem out of the relation of the letters of an alphabet to the alphabet. An alphabet is^ letters, and "society" is^ Individuals in their connections with one another.^ At this point we are brought face to face with the problem of freedom. Before discussing the problem as reformulated by Dewey, I would like to summarize Dewey's view of the human situation, and then make an explicit comparison between Dewey's view and that of Hegel. The Individual human being has two aspects to his life: his capacities and needs, and his environment. The environment is not something added on to the individual by contract or by other means, but is what he is born into and acts in. Through the process of enculturation the lndivid-l ual forms certain modes of reacting to situations and these are called habit’ s. Because of the diversity of associations into which the individual enters, there are diverse values for him, and these sometimes struggle against each other, causing inner conflict. When these conflicts arise, intelligence comes into play to rectify the situation. What is needed is a solution which will meet the needs of both group memberships and what they entail. If such a solution is forthcoming, then the I individual has in some way changed the "objective" as well 44Ibid., p. 138. 149 as the "subjective” situation. Both individual capacities and needs and individual environment are in a constant process of change and creation. No matter what the present success in straightening out difficulties and harmonizing conflicts, It is certain that problems will recur in the future In new form or on a different plane. Indeed every genuine accomplishment instead of winding up an affair and enclosing It as a jewel In a casket for future contemplation, complicates the practical situation. It effects a new distribution of ener gies which have henceforth to be employed in ways for which past experience gives no exact instruc tion. Every important satisfaction of an old want creates a new one; and this new one has to enter upon an experimental adventure to find its satis faction. Prom the side of what has gone before, achievement settles something. Prom the side of what comes after, it complicates, Introducing new problems, unsettling factors.^5 : The result of this confrontation is a new configur-; { S ation which constitutes the new Individual. What he does i Is In part conditioned by the old configuration, in part by! his ability to adapt the new environment to himself (qua past configuration) and himself to the new environment. i This is what Dewey meant by saying that the human being is ; primarily a "problem solving organism," constituted by a j continuous Interplay or dialectic of varied Interests and j i i situations. When these come to focus in specific | ^5ibid., p. 285* i 150 I - ! individuals, they are either brought into an harmonious j i j configuration or left in confusion and antithesis. i i The only criteria for values are human criteria. | The only growth for individuals is a growth toward ful- | i fillment of needs and capacities through environment. i | Since each confrontation brings with it further problems and confrontations, this growth is open-ended; that is, ; one can never be said to have "completely fulfilled him self" except in the sense that in the specific situations the individual has realized himself to the extent possible. I Creativity plays the major role in this process and the self ^Ls this continuous creation whether well or badly executed. Many of these problems entail creation of, and I | membership in, various associations. As a result of this i k associative life, there are consequences following from his own actions and the actions of others which may either serve to aid or to deter development of the individual. When these consequences affect only those directly con cerned, the actions are private actions and the consequences are controlled by those concerned. When the consequences affect others indirectly, the actions are public and give rise to a public. The organization of this public is the 151 state, which is a nonvoluntary association whose task it is to regulate public actions flowing from the voluntary associations• Dewey’s analysis of the human situation is in part identical with Hegel’s, in part complementary. The over all matrix for both was experience. For Hegel it was con stituted by the subject-object relationship, a carry-over from the previous history of philosophy. The epistemo- logical over-tones of Hegel’s analysis were removed by Dewey's analysis of the matrix in terms of capacity, need, and environment, a refinement facilitated by progress in the biological and social sciences. Both men, neverthe less, were interested in man-in-the-world, and the matrix itself was a process of constant redefinition of its con stituents. The result of each encounter was a new formu lation or configuration of individuality. For Hegel, the internal or subjective side of the matrix developed by means of thought and will. Again, progress in psychology brought a refinement of this analy sis. Dewey defined the subjective side as a process involving impulse, habit, deliberation and choice, the latter two of which he called "intelligence." For both, however, this motivation toward overt action was a 152 continuous process and not a matter of "separate facul ties." Overt actions, on the other hand, were merely "executed insights" or "objectifications" of the sub jective intentions, while the subjective intentions were overt actions in an implicit or unrealized state. The telos of all of this activity was, in principle, self- realization. True or actual self-realization was possible only when the whole of the immediate situation was taken into account and dealt with in the choice for action. In order for a man to be at home in the world, therefore, his actions had to be made explicit. The environment was considered by both thinkers as both physical and social in nature. The latter was the creation of men, brought to realization through associa tion. All associations were voluntary in nature except for the state. The state arose because of the conflict or negativity inherent in overt action. Men were torn by conflicting interests, both of their own making, and as a result of different interests in different individuals and groups. For Hegel, the state had as its task the regula tion of activity in so far as it was of such a nature "as to permit of its being in principle external." Not all actions could be subject to law, but only those which of 153 themselves demanded mediation through the general will. The vagueness of Hegel's language disappeared with Dewey's concepts of private and public actions. Only the latter come under the aegis of the state. In order to accomplish its task, the state, as "the conductor of the orchestra," has to be both separate from, yet in contact with, the voluntary associations of society. For both philosophers, individuals and institu tions were subordinate to the process which constituted them. But such a statement is misleading.in both theories. Individuals and institutions are this process; hence, what is being said is that they are subordinate to themselves. Their positions did differ in two ways, both hav ing to do with the future. First, Hegel harbored an optimism that the world was moving inexorably toward more fully realized freedom. This optimism was a result of his explicit belief in God, the idea of freedom implicit. The idea of freedom had developed in men's consciousness (mainly through religion) to a greater extent than It had been realized objectively in concrete terms of perfect states; therefore, the future would involve the process of making this explicit. Dewey did not share this optimism, and believed that the future could hold either the 154 development or the destruction of freedom. Men, through ignorance and prejudice, might bring about the latter. The second way in which they differed was partially due to this difference in attitude toward the future. For Hegel, the task of philosophy was the comprehension of what had come to be; for Dewey, philosophy not only had to involve comprehension of the past and the present, but also direction toward the future. How this was to be accom plished, we shall see in the next chapter. These differences cannot be compromised; but neither do they constitute anything more than different views of the task of the philosopher, and on the one hand an optimism toward the future, on the other, a value free judgment. But Dewey in a way made up for this lack of optimism by insisting on teaching the method of intelli gence; not that philosophers are to become kings, but kings are to become philosophical. Dewey's assessment of his relationship to Hegel was accurate, then, so far as it went. But his misconcep tions of Hegel vis-a-vis the Absolute, Objective Spirit, and the dialectic caused him to stop short of the full scope of his agreement with Hegel. This misconception of 155 Hegel, both on the part of Dewey and others, precluded an accurate assessment of the relationship. In addition to these misconceptions, there has not been a full understand ing of the implications of the historical orientation of both Dewey and Hegel. The progress of history, constituted by change both in environment and needs, was a sufficient condition for a change in the nature and analysis of freedom. We shall see the result of this change in the next chapter. The first three conditions for a comparison of the two philosophies of freedom have been met. Both Dewey and Hegel were engaged in the same universe of discourse. Their starting point was the social, not the atomistic, non-social individual of Rousseau and the British empiricists. Thirdly, their analyses of the basic human situation which underlie the analyses of freedom did not contain mutually exclusive or contradictory assumptions or descriptions of phenomena. The extent to which the fourth condition is fulfilled is yet to be seen and will fully appear only with the examination of Dewey's analysis of freedom. Thus far it has been met in a positive manner. The negativity or conflict inherent in action has given rise, in both cases, to a mass of partially self-regulating voluntary associations, and the state. A partial diver gence of the two theories and a resulting complexity in the analysis of freedom has already been anticipated in the philosophy of T. H. Green. But this complexity had already been pointed to by Hegel, and was due not to a change In principle, but in history. I should now like to turn to an examination of Dewey's formulation of the problem of freedom. CHAPTER V DEWEY'S ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM OF FREEDOM Hegel's formulation of the concept of freedom was the following: (l) the individual must have an accurate and intelligent evaluation of the situation and must desire to act according to this perception; (2) the societal matrix must be such that it affords the individ uals constituting It both freedom from external obstruc tions and freedom to develop through appropriate channels. The whole problem is one of generating.a social order which of itself will generate individual freedom in an actual and not merely formal way. Dewey accepted this formulation as a general state ment of what the problem of freedom involved. It is a problem of harmonizing and adjusting the various desires, needs, capacities, and environmental factors to each other. Each individual must relate to others, cooperating with them, and giving and receiving what is needed in such a way that the configuration which constitutes him is one 157 which contains the smallest amount of conflict possible.^ Not only freedom of action, but also freedom of mind, is needed for this to be actualized. There must be a correct assessment of the total situation. Since conduct is social (i.e., public, objective), the judgment concern ing conduct must be socially orientated. This means that subjective morality, in the sense of whim or mere personal preference, falls far short of what is needed in order to obtain actual freedom.^ Freedom is actual and not merely formal only when the individual can fulfill his needs and capacities under the given conditions or can change these conditions so that it is possible. Since man is a social animal and exists only in this environment, this cannot be done in the abstract with an abstract idea of freedom. Dewey's position can perhaps be better understood if contrasted with the idea of freedom as it was conceived ^Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics, pp. 164, f. ^Ibid., pp. 188-90* For a general statement of the problem of freedom, see also Ethics (1908), p. 438; The Public and Its Problems, p. 168; "Philosophies of Freedom," Freedom in the Modern World, ed. Horace M. Kallen (New York: Coward McCann, Inc., 1928), p. 255* Compare this with Hegel's contrast between particular and general will. ' 159 by the laissez-faire school of political theory.^ This theory maintained that the removal of external obstruc tions to action was a sufficient condition for actual freedom. If each individual were left alone to act In his own self-interest (sometimes qualified by the word "enlightened"), the social situation would give rise to a harmony of interests. Each would work for his own happiness according to natural laws, and society would prosper and grow. The one thing not to do was to tamper with these "natural" workings of society. History had shown, however, that this optimism and trust in natural laws was completely unwarranted. Dewey objected to the theory on theoretical as well as historical grounds. This Idea of social and political Individualism was based on a false psychology of the individual.^ Consequently, the theory that freedom meant only political freedom, i.e., freedom from government action and from obstructions from other Individuals, was 3This and the following paragraph are a short summary of his treatment of this subject In Individualism, Old and New. Dewey's critique Is essentially a reitera tion of Hegel's criticism of this school of thought, now enriched by almost a hundred years of history. ^See above, pp. 129-130. 160 placed In question. Dewey's view was that the removal of obstructions was a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for actual freedom. To count it as a sufficient condition was to ignore the negativity or conflict inherent in action itself. Man's nature was not fixed and innate, but was constituted by a creative process. In order to have actual freedom, each individual had to strive to fulfill himself within the framework of this conflict in social life. Effective choice demanded the existence of positive freedom as well as negative freedom; that is, society (qua organized publics) had to create public channels for development of individual needs. The negativity inherent in human action necessi tated this development. The demand for liberty is a demand for power, either for possession of powers of action not already possessed, or for retention and expan sion of powers already possessed.5 This relativity of liberty to the existing dis tribution of power of action, while meaning that there is no such thing as absolute liberty, also 5Problems of Men (New York: Philosophical Library, 1946), pp. 111-12. 161 necessarily means that wherever there is liberty at one place there is restraint at some other place. The system of liberties that exists at any time is always the system of restraints or controls that exists at that time. No one can do anything except in relation to what others can do and cannot do.6 Thus far Dewey has simply repeated Hegel's analy sis of the idea of freedom. It is a description of what follows from the nature of the human being as a social individual. Freedom for the Individual Is freedom for society, and vice versa. Hegel and Dewey also agreed that the Individuals in a society must have a consciousness of freedom. The problem of freedom of cooperative individuali ties Is a problem to be viewed in the context of culture. The state of culture is a state of inter action of many factors, the chief of which are law and politics, industry and commerce, science and technology, the arts of expression and communica tion, and of morals or the values men prize and the ways In which they evaluate them; and finally, though Indirectly, the system of general ideas used by men to justify and to criticize the fundamental condi tions under which they live, their social philoso phy. 7 The "public philosophy," to use Walter LIppmann's phrase, ^Ibid., pp. 112-13- As we shall see, It was because Dewey did not fully cope with the problem of power that, in principle, his solution was found wanting. 7Freedom and Culture, p. 23• 162 is the return to consciousness of acts and their conse quences in the form of a philosophical understanding. Dewey's analysis of the state also signified an agreement with Hegel on the place and purpose of the state.8 But the historical situation with which Dewey was confronted presented an added complication: as Hegel had predicted, the demand of the people, the masses, had come into conflict with the idea of ' ’ rule by the best." Because of this historical change, Dewey's analysis of freedom differed from Hegel's, although it was still oriented by the two propositions constituting his idea of freedom. In fact, it was just because of the historical validity of these two propositions that the concept of concrete freedom and the state did change. Two ideas, both contained in Hegel's analysis, form the foundation of Dewey's further formulation and solution to the problem of freedom: social control and ®See above, pp. 136-137# 151-153* This does not mean that there was conscious agreement. } 163 education.^ Both of these were also contained In some form in the historical situation which Dewey confronted. In so far as both were already present, his analysis of freedom remains descriptive. The normative aspect of his analysis arose at that point where the basic ideas had not yet been consummated. The deficiencies in the actual situation presented themselves as the problem to be solved; the solution proffered reflected Dewey's use of philosophy as a tool for reform. The basic idea of democracy is a demand that "every mature being must participate in the formation of the values that regulate the living of men together."10 This was the abstract moment in Hegel's conception of freedom which defined the essence of freedom. Hegel had seen the fulfillment of this aspect in the guise of govern ment under constitutional law and the administration and ^The idea of social control is contained in his concept of the state as the director of the activities of civil society in so far as these activities did not accord with the general will when left to themselves. For Hegel's views on the place of education, see above, pp. 77-78 and the appropriate works cited in the footnotes on these pages. l°Ratner (ed.), Intelligence in the Modern World, p. 400. 164 perpetuation of this law by those who were Intellectually equipped to formulate and comprehend the needs of the society. Democracy as It had evolved by the time Dewey wrote Implied that such realization was not sufficient; nothing short of representative government in which the people themselves chose their representatives could ful fill this demand.11 In America the idea of mass education had arisen as a corollary to this demand. While Hegel had seen the need for understanding on the part of the citizenry, there was nothing in his society to suggest a concrete way in which to satisfy it. The idea that it was both necessary and possible to educate all of the citizens presented Dewey with the basis for his analysis: only through successful education could one simultaneously mold both capacities and environment in such a way that freedom could be accomplished. It was not a simple matter, as Dewey saw it, to assure an education for all. The way in which the education proceeded was of prime importance. As the 11See above, pp. 92- 93> for Hegel's comments on this. 165 educational process stood at the time, he concluded that education was practically useless. There was education, to be sure; but it was not serving to free men's minds. If we look back to his analysis of the human situation, we can find the basis for his ideas on educa tion. The task presented to the individual was one of coping with life in such a way that he is able to grow. This meant that impulse, habit, and environment must be employed and recognized as the matrix in which the individual develops. It was the office of intelligence to bring about a proper harmony between these aspects.12 The aim of education would be, therefore, to develop means through which the mind could work so as to bring about this harmony. "What nutrition and reproduction are to “1 p ^ In what follows, I shall pay little attention to the great mass of material written by educators on Dewey. Nor shall I trouble to defend my interpretation of him against theirs. Dewey himself has resolutely and adequately disavowed much of their interpretation. These criticisms are to be found throughout his writings, both popular and technical. A good statement of them can be found in "How Much Freedom in the New Schools?" New Republic, LXIII (1930), pp. 204-06; "The Need for Orienta tion," Forum and Century, XCIII (1935)> PP* 333-35* See also Educational Essays by John Dewey, ed. J. J.. Findlay (London: Blackie and Son, Ltd., 1910). 166 physiological life, education Is to social life.nl3 The flaw in the "ordinary notion" of education was that it ignored its social necessity and its identity with all human association that affects conscious life. It identified education with a process of learning symbols in a remote manner, i.e., the acquisition of literacy.^ Dewey is not arguing here that literacy and the other pur suits of "ordinary" education must be abolished. He is only insisting that there must be a balance between the formal and the informal aspects of education. In actual life, the content of the formal part of education is immersed in the pursuit of life in the society; the same should be true of the academic environment, which Is itself merely a part of the overall social environment. The difference between the formal and informal aspects rests on the distinction between "knowing" and "understanding." If "knowledge" merely means Information, 1 *3 “Democracy and Education, p. 11. See also Human Nature and Conduct, p. 96; Liberalism and Social Action (New York: Putnams’ Sons, 1935)# P* 50; "Education and Social Direction," Dial, LXIV (1918), p. 335. 14 Democracy and Education, p. 21. For earlier statements of this, see "Democracy in Education," Elemen tary School Teacher, IV (1903)# P« 193; "Teaching Ethics in the High School," Educational Review, VI (1893)# pp. 313-21. 167 as It did In education, then this Is only "knowledge about things." This kind of knowledge contains no guarantee that understanding, "the spring of Intelligent action," will follow. Understanding has to be in terms of how things work and how to do things. Understanding, by its very nature, Is related to action; just as informa tion, by its nature, Is Isolated from action or connected with it only here and there by accident.^5 The prevailing methods and aims of education stressed for the most part what Dewey termed knowledge about things. Thus, although a wealth of information was being passed on to the youth, the method by which it was taught gave them little or no ability either to apply or . rely upon this Information in the pursuit of their own lives. If they did attempt to apply it, the consequences of their actions were left to chance; for what it amounted to was the application of set habits, blind to the unique ness of new situations. This was especially true in the case where ethical subject matter was dealt with. It consisted for the most part in moral preaching and the generation of dogmas to be applied to the future actions •^Problems of Men, p. 52. 168 of the students. The past was looked upon as the whole •s solution to the future. The plasticity and freedom of mind needed to cope with the ever-changing problems of human conduct were not developed. Any success in dealing with unique situations was either a matter of chance or of self-education accom plished in spite of the formal educational institutions.. On the other hand, permissiveness was not the answer either; although the student did not need the rhetoric of the dogmatist with its harsh disciplinary directives, he did need direction. The answer to the problem of the proper philosophy of education lay in some method which contained both the directive force and the plasticity needed in the making of human decisions. Dewey found a paradigm already existent: the methods of the physical sciences. The ethical prin ciple on which the democratic society rested was "responsibility and freedom of mind in discovery and •^The once worshipped image of the self-made man is not myth. ■^See above, p. 165, ftn. 12, for reference to this matter of permissiveness versus direction. 169 1 A proof."xo The development of individuality in any really meaningful sense would have to mean the development of self-directing individuality. Scientific methods, the methods pursued by the scientific inquirer, give us an exact and con crete exhibition of the path which intelligence takes when working most efficiently, Linder most favorable conditions.19 The methods of science had been shown to be instru ments whereby any number of unique events could be dealt with and understood by means of control of the thought processes. Experimental method, however, was the anti thesis of rigid dogmatism. On the other hand, it avoided the other extreme of treating events in a haphazard way. Experimental method is not just messing around nor doing a little of this and a little of that in the hope that things will Improve. Just as in the physical sciences, it implies a coherent body of ideas, a theory, that gives direction to effort. What is Implied, in contrast to every form of absolutism, is that the ideas and theory be taken as methods of action tested and con tinuously revised by the consequences they pro duce in actual social conditions. Since they are operational in nature, they modify conditions, while the first requirement, that of basing them iQElementary School Teacher, IV (1903)* p. 19^* See also Experience and Education (New York: Macmillan Co., 1938), pp. 111-12. ■^Elementary School Teacher, IV (1903)* P* 200. 170 upon realistic study of actual conditions, brings about their continuous reconstruction.20 Dewey has not here embraced the credo of scientism. He means only that the method employed in the empirical sciences is the method of intelligence, regard less of the problem involved. The content of the physical sciences may or may not have anything to do with the con tent of "life problems." This can only be decided in each particular situation. The reason why experimental method is applicable to the solution of the problems of freedom is that the latter are constituted by factors which are generically like those confronted in the physical sciences. There is an immediate lack of clarity about the problems arising from a lack of understanding of the specific conditions giving rise to the problems. Consequently, there is a lack of communication between the persons involved. The only possible solution to the problems which arise in society is the perfecting of the means and ways of communi cation of meanings so that genuinely shared interest on "The Future of Liberalism," Journal of Philoso phy, XXXII (1935), P- 228. 171 in the consequences of interdependent activities may inform desire and effort and thereby direct action. This is the meaning of the statement that the problem is a moral one dependent upon intelligence and education.21 Given the organic relation between individuals liv ing together in society, the individuals themselves must of their own accord generate the social matrix. The method of intelligence, i.e., scientific method, is a method which, while embracing theories by means of which given phenomena can be understood and explained, takes all of the relevant phenomena and conditions into consideration. Further, new social phenomena, arising as consequences of previous social actions, can be taken into account without disturb ing the social balance. The method, therefore, contains means for self-corrective reconstruction, because there is a complete lack of dogma and a complete openness to any further conditions which may arise. According to Dewey's theory of education, then, the student will be given an atmosphere like that of the "outside world." Although there is direction given to his work, the responsibility for proceeding will be placed upon ^The Public and Its Problems, p. 155• 172 him. Direction and control by the teacher are needed only to the extent that the student will learn to look for the full meanings of the various stimuli presented to him. He will learn to look for the conditions which constitute the situation, thus avoiding a waste of energy in responding blindly to situations.22 There will be no preconceived aims or answers to any given problem. By deliberation upon various avenues suggested by hypothesis, choices will be made and tested for adequacy. If these choices prove inefficacious, the student will learn to search for condi tions and factors missed in the previous analysis of the situation until a new course of action or thought emerges. The student, in short, will learn how to think, not what to think. Having learned to think in this way, the. student will, "by habit," deal with life's problems in the same way. Dewey's view of the "present" state of education was analogous to the picture Plato gave of the prisoner in the cave. These prisoners, the citizens, were chained together facing a wall on which they saw nothing but shadows. These 22Pemocracy and Education, p. 30. 173 shadows were second-hand Information handed to them by others. There was no experience of the real situation, but a complete reliance upon convention and the "facts" they were given. Education, in Dewey's sense, would free the individuals and "turn them to the light," the real world. The method of intelligence would afford them clear and open processes for coping with this world. In addition to his reassessment of the methods and aims of education, Dewey saw a need for a reconsideration of the true scope of education. Formal schooling was really only a part of the educational process. The whole of the social environment forms the mental and emotional disposition of individuals. The value of any institution is judged by its effectiveness in enlarging and improving experience. Social institutions must be viewed consciously as means for education. Through education, then, the mind is freed; but as the Individual sees the social matrix, so he will react to it. It is at this point that the self-generation necessary to the solution of the problem of freedom enters. Institu tions, customs, laws, and all of the other relations which constitute society and the individual will be subjected to 174 the scrutiny of Individuals who realize themselves as social individuals. When a particular relation appears which is seen to create a problem, steps will be taken to change this situation into one which will promote growth instead of hindering it. No institution or custom or law will be held to be a priori necessary and justified. Nor can they be justified on the grounds that they have existed for a long period of time. Each relation is Justified just so long as it continues to serve the purpose it was designed to serve. The whole point of Dewey's critique of the "old individualism dragging itself into the new social condi tions," is oriented around the fact that, when changes were called for, they were forestalled for as long as possible, thus bringing about great harm to some individ uals in the society. The phenomenon of "cultural lag" is much talked about, but little recognized. Justification of the "drag" was derived from an abstract idea of individual ity and democracy, in which freedom meant negative freedom and the right of individuals to express their subjective wills. Freedom meant political freedom, freedom from governmental oppression. Economic, Intellectual, and cultural freedom were considered purely private matters. 175 Justification for this view was derived from the abstract view of the individual and society. The "new" individual would take problems under consideration cognizant of the distinction between public and private actions. Dewey's idea of social control follows directly from his idea of the new education.. The concept of "pooled intelligence" had been the by-word for democracy, but had been limited in its use because of the abstract view of human nature. The idea of social control, on the other hand, had been identified with totalitarian ism.; but, as Dewey pointed out, there is always some form of social control whenever there is any rule by law. There are three distinct types of social control. First, there is the kind of control wielded by a totali tarian state. The social consequences of such control tend toward a monolithic society, suppression of freedom of inquiry, and limited communication and association. The loss of individual liberty, and the idea of social control, are synonymous. The second type of social control entails the con trol of the masses by a given power group, not identified directly with government, but still the effective power structure. This is a form of control In which only the 176 direct interests of those constituting the power structure are taken into consideration. The mode of operation derived from the laissez-faire political theory embodied this form of control from Dewey's point of view. Dewey rejected both forms of control. The former repressed all individual liberty; the latter raised individual liberty to a plane where, from the social point of view, there was anarchy, not freedom.23 The third kind of social control avoided the pit falls of the other two. While it was not totalitarian in nature, it was a demand for social planning for those things affecting the publics. It embodied Dewey's idea of educa tion and intelligence. An immense difference divides the planned society from a continuously planning society. The former requires fixed blueprints imposed from above and therefore involving reliance upon physical and psychological force to secure conformity to them. The latter means the release of intelligence through the widest form of cooperative give and take. The attempt to plan social organization and association without the freest possible play of Intelligence contradicts the very idea of social planning. For the latter is an operative method of activity, not a predetermined set of final "truths."24 23phiiosophy and Civilization, p. 323* ^ Intelligence in the Modern World, pp. 431-32. 177 Both laissez-faire theory and totalitarianism presupposed certain truths and insisted on definite fundamental prin ciples and fixed aims. The distinction between a society that is planned, that is, controlled by a set of a priori truths, and one that plans, makes the difference between a society of slaves and a society of free men. Social control, then, is nothing more than the application of the method of intelligence to the problems of men. If the method of Intelligence is properly employed, the organization of public activities by govern ment does not exclude change and reform, "it means that so far as a society is organized, these changes themselves occur In regular and authorized ways."25 Dewey put his case for social control and the adoption of the method of intelligence In its simplest terms in Human Nature and Conduct: The road to freedom may be found In that knowledge of facts which enables us to employ them In connec tion with desires and aims. A physician or engineer is free In his thought and his action in the degree In which he knows what he deals with. Possibly we find here the key to any f r e e d o m .26 2^Ethics (1908 ed.), p. 430. g^Human Nature and Conduct, p. 303. 178 Education and social control are, then, the two basic ideas which compose Dewey's solution to the problem of freedom. The human situation demanded that both aspects of freedom (i.e., the positive and the negative) be developed. Education, as Dewey conceived of it, would make possible the actualization of positive freedom in each individual; for it gave him the tool with which to find the avenues which would further his growth. However, to edu cate the individual in this way and then throw him out into a society which operated on principles inconsistent with his own would be to accomplish little. Therefore, social control, the application of the method of Intelligence in legislation and in the administration of the society, was also necessary. It was necessary that there be public con trol of those environmental factors which had the poten tial for affecting an individual. Intelligent planning and control of public acts would both remove those obstructions to individuality and freedom which existed and, at the same time, would explore the possible avenues for the creative growth of the individuals. Through planning, those avenues could be found which would afford the individuals oppor tunity to develop, while those which would in the end be harmful to individuality would be closed. 179 The relationship between Hegel and Dewey vls-a-vls the problem of freedom can now be clearly seen. Dewey complemented Hegel's analysis by attending to the histori cal evolution of the concept of freedom. For Hegel, the fulfillment of concrete freedom came only with the media tion of the constitutionally organized state through the comprehension of the general will by the citizens of the state. The demand for this "right to comprehend" had been manifested historically through the demands for demo cratic government which Hegel had predicted. These demands had in no way been satisfied in Hegel's historical context except through the acceptance of the rule of "the wise," and thus Hegel could not deal with them, given his conception of philosophy. Dewey, on the other hand, could both see some historical clue of the means for satisfying this demand and suggest the manner in which it could be fulfilled. The state had to play the same role as mediator by instituting some form of social control on the public actions of those in civil society; but mass education had to be instituted in order to provide the citizens with the means for comprehension of the situation as it existed and the means to proceed to bring about necessary changes. 180 Thus Hegel's insistence on rule by the intelligent was given democratic form through Dewey's theory of education. The concreteness of Hegel was not lost, however, as it had been in Green's analysis of democratic society. There was, with Dewey, no ideal to be fulfilled, no trans cendent nature to which to appeal. The concrete associa tions of civil society and the state served as the only means whereby the individual could judge his situation and evaluate the need for changes. The generation of a social order which would in turn generate individual freedom in an actual and not merely a formal way depended upon the individuals themselves; but these were social, not abstract non-social, individuals, who were consciously involved in the negativity or conflict generated by their own actions. Where subjective morality was opposed to the general will, or in Dewey's terms the public good, subjective morality was immorality. The subjective will, in so far as public actions were concerned, had to become one with the general will. This could be accomplished with freedom only if the individuals involved employed the method of intelligence to their problems. Where public action was demanded for their own actual good, social control, governed by the method of intelligence, had to be employed. 181 It would be wrong to see Dewey's solution as utopian, even though It is broad In scope and It does go beyond what now exists. If his solution is utopian, then so is the methodology of the physical sciences. But this method has been proven efficient and flexible and it is just this flexibility which gives the impression of great breadth in scope. The problem of freedom, as conceived by Hegel and Dewey, demanded just such breadth. Dewey never for a moment considered a social order in which all problems would be solved any more than did Hegel. What Dewey did think was that he had found a method for solving problems of freedom. PART TWO AFTER DEWEY CHAPTER VI THE PROBLEM OP FREEDOM REMAINS In the first part of this dissertation I have examined the concept of freedom as Hegel and Dewey envisioned it, and have tried to show the philosophical relationship between the two views. I should now like to turn to the problem of freedom as it stands after Dewey’s analysis, and subject It to an examination. The social sciences have gone far In producing empirical evidence to support the view of Hegel and Dewey. The human being in situation is essentially a social individual, and not a non-social atom. The behavioral study of associations and groups, of their purposes and structures, has further vindicated the analysis which Hegel and Dewey gave of the social environment and the problem of freedom. It will be assumed that this is a correct analysis of the human situation: that It is constituted by social individuals who function In a matrix of their own creation, 183 184 and that the problem of freedom embraces both negative and positive freedom and arises out of the conflict inher ent In an act of objectification. This negativity, if not controlled, threatens the essential nature of freedom, i.e., it limits the capabilities of the Individuals involved to realize their capacities. A spectre haunted Dewey's analysis, however, almost from the beginning. It amounted to the realization that those in favor of, or controlling, the status quo will oppose anything which will mean a change in that status quo. But this strikes at the heart of his proposals for education. To say that education is a social function, secur ing directions and development in the immature through their participation in the life of the group to which they belong, is to say in effect that education will vary with the quality of life which prevails in a group. Particularly is it true that a society which not only changes but which has the ideal of such change as will improve, will have different standards and methods of educa tion from one which aims simply at the perpetuation of its own customs.1 He later expressed this same difficulty in Human Nature and Conduct. • ^ Democracy and Education, p. 94. 185 At first sight It seems to Indicate that every attempt to solve the problem and secure funda mental reorganization is caught in a vicious circle. For the direction of native activity depends upon acquired habits, and yet acquired habits can be modified only by redirection of impulse. Existing institutions impose their stamp, their superscription, upon impulse and instinct- They embody the modifications the latter have undergone. How then can we get leverage for changing institutions?2 The solution proposed in Human Nature and Conduct is the educational theory we have examined in the last chapter. But this does not extricate Dewey from the vicious circle, a fact he recognized in Democracy and Education, but did not take cognizance of in the later work. In short, the process which will bring about changes is circular, and contains an inertial factor which limits its own implementation and effectiveness. In order for society to change in its process of bringing about change, i.e., in order for society to begin running itself intelligently rather than haphazardly or by worn-out dogma, the educational process must insert the method of intelli gence into the mainstream of the society. The schools must teach the young not what to think, but how to think, how to ^Huroan Nature and Conduct, p. 125- 186 tackle problems, and how to Investigate and order "facts." This is necessary in order that democratic society may survive as truly democratic. But the society itself introduces an enervating drag into the process of education. The individuals who control the status quo are not against the method of intel ligence as such, but against certain of the conclusions which inevitably arise out of the employment of this method. These conclusions are looked at, not as tentative hypotheses meant to be tested for their validity, but as revolutionary dogma destined to destroy the society. Every attempt is made by the conservative to brand these conclusions "sub versive," and the result is that, although the method itself is not necessarily attacked, its effectiveness is none the less limited if not destroyed completely. This cyclical inertia in Dewey's theory is not a new discovery.^ George Geiger, for instance, sees it as a problem Involving the introduction of a new political pro gram.^" Dewey, he states, was not able to furnish a ^Hegel was also aware of this problem in his own analysis. See The Phenomenology of Mind, pp. 473-74• ^Paul Schilpp (ed. ), The Philosophy of John Dewey, pp. 362-68. 187 practical program. Sidney Hook has given an effective answer to this criticism. Dewey has been reproached for his failure at this point to work out successful techniques of political action in order to win a free hand for truly experimental social policies. Failed here he undoubtedly has. But . . . Dewey never set himself up as a politician. . . . This is every- bodies' problem, not merely his.5 Hook suggests, contrary to this, that the failure in Dewey's theory was due to his over-optimism "about human willingness to follow the lead of intelligence." He failed to see the full impact of political and social move ments which ostensibly apply "scientific" techniques, but do so in a ruthless manner, and for the sole purpose of achieving political power.6 In short, most of the people can be fooled most of the time if it is done correctly. If the people have the perception of following the "lead of intelligence" then the democratic thinker is presented with a paradox; he must choose either to live with this, or to use undemocratic means to reform the society.^ Hook brings ^Marvin Farber (ed. ), Philosophic Thought in France and the United States, p. 499* 6Ibld., p. 500. ?Ibid. 188 us right back to the circle from which the planning society must extricate itself. But, In doing so, he suggests the real fault in Dewey's theory. I would like to suggest that the fault actually lies in Dewey's failure to give a full analysis of power. Although power and force are recognized as present and operative, they have no effect on his structuring of groups in society. Without such a structural analysis, he has nothing in principle by which he can explain or remove the cyclical inertia. As we shall see, when the analysis of power and its distribution is superimposed upon the analysis of individuals and groups as Hegel and Dewey pro posed, something new emerges which directly affects the solution to the problem of freedom. Before going on to show this, I would like to explain the reasons for Dewey's failure to give power its proper place in his analysis. There are at least two reasons why this lacuna exists in Dewey's theory. The first is his insistence on the irrelevance of the problem of the individual versus society. He recognized only con flicts between individuals, between individuals and groups, and between groups. All of these were simply treated as publics. Although it must be granted to Dewey 189 that "society as such" does not exist except by abstraction, some publics do exist which have more power in the society than others. It is the existence of this power structure which Dewey recognized in the problem of the inertia,* but his analysis of society gave no means for dealing with these groups who control society. He was then left with the paradox Hook pointed out: if he is going to change the power structure which causes the inertia, he must leave the experimental method and resort to non-democratic means of beginning the new process. The second reason is simply a corollary of the first. Dewey treated classes and class warfare as a myth. He insisted that the resources of conservatism and change resided not in classes, but in each individual. In some individuals one was stronger, in others the other. Although this too may be taken as a valid description of these forces, it is in no way incompatible with the acknowledgement of the existence of classes which fix the power structure of the social matrix. In fact, It is a logical step from the recognition of two types of Individ uals, distinguished from each other by the measure in which each tendency Is present, to the recognition of the natural formation of socio-political groups formed on the basis of 190 the particular tendency dominant In the Individuals con- Q cerned. It is necessary to take this step In the analysis of the problem of freedom and the structure of the human situation underlying freedom. Without it, there is no theoretical explanation for the self-sustaining circle which vitiated Dewey's theory, and which does exist in the social matrix. By taking the step, on the other hand, the generation of effective power will be explained and the nature of the 1 1 vicious circle" will be made explicit. The fact that power is generated In a social matrix cannot be denied. Within any aggregate or group, decisions are made and acted upon. Whenever decisions are made, some Individual or group of individuals makes them. The phenomenon of power Is nothing else than the participation in the making of decisions. Power is therefore a relation, ®For an analysis of Dewey which maintains that he did take this step, see John Warren Coons, The Idea of Control in John Dewey's Philosophy (Rochester, N.H.: The Record Press, Inc., 1936). that "society as such" does not exist except by abstraction, some publics do exist which have more power in the society than others. It is the existence of this power structure which Dewey recognized in the problem of the inertia; but his analysis of society gave no means for dealing with these groups who control society. He was then left with the paradox Hoox pointed out: if he is going to change the power structure which causes the inertia, he must leave the experimental method and resort to non-democratic means of beginning the new process. The second reason Is simply a corollary of the first. Dewey treated classes and class warfare as a myth. He Insisted that the resources of conservatism and change resided not In classes, but in each individual. In some individuals one was stronger, in others the other. Although this t o o may be taken as a valid description of these forces. It is In no way incompatible with the acknowledgement o f the existence of classes which fix the power structure of the social matrix. In fact, it is a logical step from the recognition of two types of individ uals, distinguished from each other by the measure in which each tendency is present, to the recognition of the natural formation of socio-political groups formed on the basis of 190 the particular tendency dominant in the individuals con- o cerned.° It is necessary to take this step in the analysis of the problem of freedom and the structure of the human situation underlying freedom. Without it, there Is no theoretical explanation for the self-sustaining circle which vitiated Dewey's theory, and which does exist in the social matrix. By taking the step, on the other hand, the generation of effective power will be explained and the nature of the "vicious circle" will be made explicit. The fact that power is generated In a social matrix cannot be denied. Within any aggregate or group, decisions are made and acted upon. Whenever decisions are made, some Individual or group of Individuals makes them. The phenomenon of power is nothing else than the participation In the making of decisions. Power is therefore a relation, ^Por an analysis of Dewey which maintains that he did take this step, see John Warren Coons, The Idea of Control in John Dewey's Philosophy (Rochester, N.H.: The Record Press, Inc., 1936). 191 and not a property.9 if we are concerned with the social matrix as an ordered whole, i.e. the state, then the decisions made are decisions which in some way affect all of the individuals who are citizens of this state. If we are concerned with smaller groups or aggregates, then the decisions do not affect all, but only some, of the citizens. Power therefore is a relation relative to the scope of the public involved. A power structure arises in any group or aggregate because not all individuals involved participate in the decision making process to the same degree or in the same way. Some have more influence in the making of decisions than have others, and while some make the decision, others simply conform to it or rebel against it. All individuals affected in any way, however, have a place in the power structure, whether it be high or low, active or passive. Whether one is actively concerned in the making of the decision and the formulation of the policy, or one is 9see Harold D. Lasswell and Abraham Kaplan, Power and Society: A Framework for Political Inquiry (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1963), pp. 75-77* I am indebted to this work for many of the operational defini tions and the basic structure of the analysis of power used in this dissertation. 192 participating in the decision by supporting it (conforming to it) or reacting against it (and thereby withdrawing support), the formulation, support, or withdrawal of sup port, is conditioned by a more or less well-defined aggre gate of values. These values are derived from, and mani fested by, the groups with which the individual identifies himself in his public and private actions/ The way in which an individual identifies himself depends upon his perception (comprehension) of the con figuration of needs, capacities and environmental factors which constitute him. This perception involves an aspect of "subjectivity" which cannot be escaped and which is pivotal in an understanding of any power structure. Such a perception can either be valid or invalid. A valid per ception is one which would be empirically justified if tested in terms of (l) the completeness of the evidence available to the individual making the judgment, and (2) the compatibility of this evidence with his own exist ing value hierarchy, whether this hierarchy is explicitly recognized or not. In other words, a valid perception is one made on the basis of evidence which, given the existing self, would warrant such a judgment. An invalid perception, on the other hand, is one which would not be warranted, given the evidence. This distinction rests on Dewey's analysis of the human situation and the kind of judgment which should be made in order to arrive at a decision for action. The individual making the invalid judgment is simply not assessing the situation in view of all of the pertinent information. His perception of the consequences of acting on his decision Is contrary, or even contradictory, to the actual consequences. And it Is not only a case of the needed evidence not being at hand; the Individual is for some reason ignoring the evidence needed to make a sound decision. It is the widespread multiplication of identifica tion judgments which explain the Inertial quality of the status quo. An invalid judgment perpetuates a situation which, If seen objectively, is inimical to the realization of freedom. A valid judgment, on the other hand, will bring about a desire for changes which will open the possibilities for realization. The force of a valid Judgment depends In part on the place one holds In the power structure, and In part on the value judgments of others who also hold a place in the same power structure. 194 I shall explain what is meant here, by examining the reasons why valid and invalid judgments arise in the first place. There are two classes of invalid judgments: those which involve only an error on the part of the individual involved and those which also involve some dissimulation on the part of his social environment. Those which involve only an error on the part of the individual are of two kinds. In the first case, the individual may identify with a group which totally rejects him on the grounds that he cannot qualify for membership because of a dissimilarity of values. This individual, however, is either unaware of the rejection or refuses to recognize it. He nonetheless identifies with this group, ascribes their values to himself, and defends their actions in the pursuit of their interests and values. The second class of such errors does not involve complete rejection by the group, but token acceptance, even though the values and interests of the group are contrary to the configura tion of the individual's identifications prior to this one. In both cases the judgment is invalid. At a crucial moment the judgment or the consequences of the identification will be seen to be destructive in some way. 195 Not only will the individual perceive his rejection or token acceptance, but the consequences of his support or participation may bring about his own physical, intellec tual, or moral destruction. An invalid judgment or perception of identification may not, however, be due only to the individual. It may be the result of dissimulation on the part of others. Before treating of the reasons for dissimulation, I would like to discuss two causes of invalid perceptions in which there is dissimulation. The first of these is the appearance of a high degree of permeability and/or circulation in the group in question.10 The reason that such an appearance is valuable to the group is that the degree of "conflict among given groups varies inversely with (l) the circulation of the groups, and (2) their mutual permeability."11 Hence, even if permeability and circulation are low, it is to the advantage of the group to be rated high in both of these 10The permeability of a group is the ease with which a person can become a participant. The circulation of a group is the degree of change in group membership, independently of change in size of the group. See Lasswell and Kaplan, op. cit., p. 35. H lbid., p. 36. 196 aspects in order to avoid open or destructive conflict with other groups. In short, no group which has as a part of its needs power over other groups (whether active or passive) wishes to appear as an elite whose values and 1 p interests run counter to those of the other groups. If this dissimulation is successful, invalid identification may result. A second cause of invalid perception through dis simulation lies in the two-fold structure of any group, whether in the "private sector" or the "public sector." There Is always a formal and an effective power structure. These may coincide, both in terms of personnel and function, but not necessarily. The formal power structure is that structure which has legality, that is, which is recognized as having the properly constituted authority to make deci sions and act upon them. Although all decisions and acticns must be made through this formal structure, not all must be it. The effective power structure Is that structure by ^2This, of course, needs qualification; for no group will ultimately sacrifice its Interest through dis simulation which is certain of discovery, or which will sacrifice its real principles. The decision as to how far to go must be made in terms of some sort of "mini-max" calculation. The same Is true of dissimulation of any sort. 197 means of which the decisions are actually made. The relation between these two structures may be made to appear other than it actually is. There are sever al possible combinations. 1. The two power structures may coincide; that is, the decisions may be made and acted upon by those properly constituted to do so. In this case, there is usually no dissimulation desired. 2. The two power structures may be distinct in various degrees ranging from a complete difference in mem bership and function, to a difference constituted only by the addition of extra members (e.g., advisors) to the formal structure. These differences may be (a) completely non-apparent, (b) partially apparent, or (c) fully visible. Whichever is the case, the effective power structure can never appear to act or to be constituted contrary to what would be legally authorized, without considering the pos sibility of its rejection by those effected.-**3 a dissimu lation concerning "legality," therefore, may also cause an invalid perception and invalid identification. In cases where conflict becomes overt either because 13see Lasswell and Kaplan, op. clt., p. 126. 198 of a correction of perceptions on the part of individuals affected by decisions or because of a failure to dissimu late, and if this conflict is deemed undesirable by the authentic members of the group, attempts may be made to accommodate the dissenters and bring about a situation of stability.!^ The degree to which actual accommodation is offered depends again upon a balanced judgment concerning the maximizing of gains (or retention of those already had) together with the minimizing of losses. It may be the case that a token accommodation will have the effect of bringing about the desired stability. The amount and success of dissimulation (of which token accommodation is one example) depends upon the situation and the efficiency of the judgments of the authentic members vis-a-vis the -^Group consciousness Is the degree to which there Is Identification with a group based on solidarity In relation to valid Interests. False group consciousness is identification In relation to assumed Interests only. Group consciousness requires that the Interests shared be empirically warranted as being to_ the interest of the mem bers of the group. If participant, we can speak only of false consciousness. (ibid., pp. 45-47) An authentic member is one whose group consciousness is valid; an inauthentic member Is one whose group consciousness is false or invalid. This holds whether the group interests are special interests (interests which exceed those of individuals outside the group) or general Interests. conflict.15 In general, the reason for dissimulation Is to restore or bring about a situation in which what are in fact special interests and values appear to be either general interests and values or, at least, special Inter ests which are not contrary to the general. Success In maintaining power concerning any given set of Interests and values depends upon the appearance which the situation pro duces; the Interests and values of a given group must at least appear not to exclude interests and values of other groups, either special or general. The best situation is one in which the group interests appear to agree with or promote the general Interests. If either valid or invalid identification can be acquired from individuals whose con currence is necessary in order to maintain power, then control can be "legally" maintained,regardless of the actual situation. These observations on power in general are applica ble to the problem of the natural Inertia of a status quo !5ln addition, there are various methods for "catharsis" which may be more effective than accommodation, e.g., the procuring of a scapegoat. 200 and the power of the conservatives who wish to preserve it.^ it must be remembered in the following discussion that one cannot speak of a general status quo for "society at large," for the latter is an abstraction and the former always exists relative to a specific value or interest (or a configuration of them). Therefore, reference to the status quo is a reference to any status quo, regardless of the orientation or scope involved, but always keeping in mind that it does have a specific orientation or scope. The analysis of the status quo is also applicable to any political or social framework, be it totalitarian or democratic, socialist or capitalist. Whenever any status quo is threatened by conclu sions arrived at through open experimental thought, the authentic conservatives must take steps either to minimize or to abolish the threat. The root of their power to do so lies in their control of the attention frame in relation to •^The status quo is that configuration of values and their interpretation and distribution, which give direction to the social, political, and/or economic activ ity of any group as it exists at any given time. A con servative is an individual (or group) whose interests demand the continuation of the status quo. An authentic conservative has valid group consciousness; an inauthentic conservative is one who has false group consciousness. 201 the values and Interests In question.^7 Through control of the perspectives, the various means of dissimulation can be employed. More often than not, the dissimulation is not intentional, but the result of a fanatic or quasi-fanatic belief in some dogma. The attribute of a fanatic which makes him dangerous to open thought is not his mendacity, but his sincerity.18 Through this control, the authentic conservative is able to muster the support needed from inauthentic conservatives and defeat the proposed changes. In so far as this is successful, the status quo remains; if it fails to any degree, to that degree change does come about. The control of the attention frame arises in the following manner. Once an initial change occurs, certain individuals and groups acquire a greater share of the l^The attention frame of an individual or group in a situation is composed of the symbols coming to their focus of attention in that situation. (See Lasswell and Kaplan, op. cit., pp. 26-28.) There is a high degree of probability that the method of intelligence will bring about conflict with any status quo since, in principle, It is not oriented by the given attention frame. “ | O This is added in order to dispel any thoughts that the conspiracy theory of history is being alluded to. Whether the dissimulation occurs as a result of conspiracy or through sincere, but dogmatic, belief, the results are the same relative to the resistance against change. values Involved than do others. This accumulation is due either to accidental factors (e.g., birth, prior skill) or to intentional accumulation through manipulation. As more and more individuals are affected by the decisions of this group and in some way share in the "profits" of these decisions, the power structure becomes quantitatively larger. The larger the group becomes, the smaller in pro portion becomes the effective leadership (and, usually, the formal leadership). This occurs merely as a matter of efficiency and need not be the result of conspiracy. Thus, some gain in relation to power and potential enjoyment of the value, while the majority of those involved in the value retain proportionately smaller shares, or are merely receivers rather than receivers and controllers. Concurrently with this growth in respect to this value or values, the phenomenon of "value agglutination" occurs. Those with a high position in one value pattern tend to acquire a high position in other value patterns as well. The particular kind of concommitant values acquired depends upon the previous success in control and the usability of these other values and interests in relation to the original values. We have, then, a circle within the status quo itself and within its value patterns. Value 203 agglutination adds to the amount of control available by increasing the degree and kinds of sanctions available to those high in the original value pattern. Conversely, value agglutination itself depends upon the increase in position in the original value pattern. Initially this increase depends on two things: (l) accumulation either by means of naked force and Intention or by accident; (2) support for the individuals' positions arising from the consent of those influenced by their decisions. This latter factor depends upon an initially valid judgment by all concerned that such a value is really a value for them. This, in turn, means that there have to be some actual returns for their Initial support. Once this Initial stage Is passed, the ability effectively to use sanctions and Interpret doctrine rela tive to these values passes Into the hands of those high in the value pattern. To be high in the value pattern means to have control. Thus, those in control also con trol the various Interpretations Involved In the use or enjoyment or continuation of the present values as future values. They can also, within the limits of the "legal ity" discussed above, change the interpretation when necessary. However, continued support of such activity 204 must be a matter of consent rather than coercion. Again, all that is necessary is that it appear that a choice has been made to support the values or the decisions of those in power. Since only appearance is necessary, this brings up the possibility of the choice being perceived purely as choice but, as a matter of fact, being made under a form of coercion. Coercion involves either a threat of depriva tion of a value or a promise of an increase in influence or enjoyment of the value. If those high in the value pattern influence decisions by means of personal threat or promise, then it is clear to those affected that overt coercion has occurred. But this Is an unwise means of gaining support which will last. The wielding of power In this sense promotes open conflict and this, to some degree, is inimi cal to the stability of any situation. The most effective means of coercing without direct threat or promise of personal use of power, is to impute to the objective situation the power of self- coercement. That Is, the claim Is made, through inter pretation of the values concerned, that If the direction proposed by the authentic conservative is not followed, then the objective situation itself will bring about a 205 sanction. Thus, while a choice is made by both authentic and inauthentic conservatives who are not high in the value pattern, it is made with a high degree of perceived sanction behind it. This device, if successful, can account for support of the status quo by inauthentic conservatives. The device serves to foster the assumption that the general Interest is identical with the special interest of the power holders in the status quo. In this case, the threatened loss or heightened intensity of the status quo is the final coercive measure employed to sustain the status quo. The authentic con servatives, especially those who are power holders, are able to beg the question with those wanting change. The point of a proposed change is to alter or abolish the value orientation of the status quo. The "reformers" maintain that the status quo is not really in the interest of the majority of those concerned, and that the Judgments of the latter constitute invalid identifications. At the same time, if a secure power position exists, the authentic conservative is able to repeat part of what the reformer said and point out the loss of the status quo i£ the reformer's suggestions are followed. On this point there Is no argument: this is exactly what the reformers too 206 are saying. However, the reformers are in a position relative to the authentic conservatives such that the con trols over interpretation, dissimulation, and attention frame are in the hands of the latter. Control over these factors constitute the mechanism of self-perpetuation of the status quo. Since the reformer is unable, in most cases, to permeate the perspective of the inauthentic conservative, he is not telling the latter anything which he does not "know" in respect to loss of the status quo. Furthermore, the argument of the reformer is perceived by the inauthentic conservative to be itself Invalid because he and the reformer are oriented by different perspectives. The ultimate source of power is the state if the society is constitutionally organized. If the value in question has a direct relation to all or most of the individuals in the social matrix under the state, and if, because of value agglutination, the control of this value has also entailed influence over this ultimate legitimate source of direct coercion, then direct coercion by the state is possible. Dissension becomes treason, and so long as invalid identification continues on the part of the inauthentic conservatives, the circle of the status quo is unbroken. 207 Hook's paradox has now been spelled out. In rela tion to Dewey's analysis of the human situation, we can now see the difference which the analysis of power will make to the solution of the problem of freedom. Not only do pub lics generate power, but some publics generate more power than do others, both in intensity and in quantity. It is the nature of these more powerful publics that they desire the continuation of the status quo so far as it Is In their interest and power to control It. The ultimate in control Is the control of the effective power structure In rela tion to the given values or interests. Thus, neither education (Dewey) nor the state (Hegel and Dewey) can be looked upon as sufficient conditions for bringing about necessary changes. Both education and the state may be conceived as necessary conditions, given a beginning in the process of change. For if the "new" status quo is to be one whose first principle is to follow out the sugges tions of experimental thought, both of these Institutions must act in such a way as not to cancel out the effects of these suggestions. The human situation, then, is one which involves consent to non-freedom as well as to freedom. The former consent arises out of the invalid Judgments of 208 identification in respect to given values and interests. There is consent to environmental factors which either potentially or actually enter into particular individual matrices, and which frustrate the full realization of freedom and individuality. As Hook has pointed out, there is a lack of willingness on the part of men to follow the lead of intelligence. But this lack of willingness is not perceived as such; rather it is perceived as not only a will to follow the lead of intelligence, but the actual following of intelligence. Of course, intelligence in the latter case, is intelligence as it has been defined by the authentic conservative who maintains power. This con trol over the attention frame is perhaps the single most important factor in the survival of the status quo. The emergence of classes is a natural result of such conservation. The existence of class structure may or may not be perceived, but classes do exist, not only in the social matrix as a whole, but within any subdivision of it‘ . ^9 If the class structure is not perceived, then 19a class is a major aggregate of individuals engag ing in practices giving them a similar relation to the shap ing and distribution (and enjoyment) of one or more speci fied values. A class may or may not be organized (a group). The class structure of a social matrix is the pattern of these classes in relation to some value or values. See Lasswell and Kaplan, op. cit., pp. 62-69* 209 those involved imagine themselves to belong to a neutral or "middle class." But what is perceived is not always real ity, and when this type of "classless" or "middle-class" society is referred to by theorists and members alike, it is discussed and defended only in regard to one or more specific values which do not differentiate the structure of the matrix into classes. The value structure which does effect classes is glossed over or ignored completely.20 If, on the other hand, the class structure is per ceived and consented to, then steps must be taken by the authentic conservatives who hold power to adjust the atten tion frame to this fact by enlisting the support of inauthentic conservatives. Either the forms of dissimula tion discussed above are employed or appeal Is made to natural law or history or the superiority or Inferiority of certain values. In principle, any given social matrix may have a pluralism In class structure; but due to the process of value agglutination, one class structure tends to dominate, the members of each class sharing in more or less the same degree the various values of importance to the 20Compare Milovan Djllas, The New Class (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1957). 210 group. If those who are high in the matrix of values which dominate the social matrix are low in a particular value structure within it, it is usually the case that this latter value is not considered important in relation to the dominant matrix. For instance, to be high in the value structure relative to religious values in a social matrix in which religious values are negated or held in ridicule, is to hold a relatively meaningless position. The recognition of classes and power structures, therefore, is not contrary to the view of the human situa tion given by Hegel and Dewey. Actual membership in a class is a function of (l) the actual share one has in the values which shape the social matrix, and this is a func tion of either (2) an accident of birth or skill, (3) abil ity (both natural and acquired), and/or (4) identification with the values and interests Involved. This last factor Is the natural step from the internal configuration which Dewey found in each individual. If the identification Is valid, the Individual tends toward those groups which, as a matter of fact, will aid in the realization and growth of the individual, if the judgment is invalid, realization and growth will be hindered. 211 It would seem that we have arrived through our analysis at the same place from which we started. The tension between "objective" and "subjective" factors still exists. Both the state and education proved unsatisfac tory as sufficient conditions for a solution to the problem of freedom. Their insufficiency lies in the fact that both are, to a large degree, determined and controlled by those conservatives whose intention it is to preserve the status quo which, by nature, resists the constant changes neces sary for the realization of freedom. Consequently, there is no guarantee of true participation or of rule oriented toward the actualization of freedom for all. Marx's solution rests on the premise that such is the case, and freedom must await the moment when the majority of the inauthentic conservatives can no longer have their perceptions distorted. When the objective and subjective conditions become antagonistic to such a degree that no amount of accommodation can resolve the situation short of the self-destruction of the status quo, the two sides take a stand, and revolution occurs. Subsequent to the revolution proper, an elite party will lead the society to a state of "real classlessness," thereby resolving the cause of conflict. 212 We have seen, however, that this "classlessness" is an illusion and depends upon the manipulation of the atten tion frame. Dependence upon a "dictatorship of the proletariat" or some other interim means of bringing about the classless society is therefore open to the same dif ficulties encountered in any state. The analysis of power when superimposed on Hegel's and Dewey's analysis of the human situation leads to the following inference. The solution to the problem of free dom will not come through any direct change or manipulation of the social matrix which stands as the potential genera tor of free Individuals. The status quo is as necessary to social stability as gravity is to physical stability. Changes will probably come about in the future as they have in the past--through a constant redefinition of "liberal ism." Both Dewey and Hegel implicitly recognized this. In Hegel it is manifested in the fact that "objective spirit" is not the final stage of man's development. Absolute spirit as accomplished in art, religion, and philosophy is not only the higher development of spirit through a return to consciousness of what has been accom plished through objectification, but is the original means for bringing about change in objective spirit. This 213 dialectic does not end in any particular man or epoch, but will continue so long as there is history, i.e., until there is full realization of freedom in the universe. In Dewey we find the same thing put into more, naturalistic terms. The solution to each manifestation of the problem of freedom brings forth a new configuration of the individual and his matrix which, in turn, reintroduces the problem of freedom in new terms. The liberal of one era becomes the conservative of a later one. Any final solu tion would have to come in terms of a liberalism which was a liberalism in principle; that is, as soon as the specific problem was solved, this individual would have to rise up against it. Although this is certainly possible In the case of an individual, it is not for the social matrix as such; for this would mean that there was no status quo. If a solution is possible in principle, and If it does not lie in the direction of changing the essential nature of the social environment, then it must lie In the direction of an initial reorientation of the perception of capacities and needs in spite of the social matrix. I should now like to turn to a brief examination of the pos sibility of an examination of freedom from the perspective of the "internal" side of man. CHAPTER VII EPILOGUE This problem of the eternal antagonism between the self and other selves, between the "subjective" and the "objective," between change and the maintenance of the status quo, has led to some of the contemporary investiga tions in ontology. Nietzsche and Kierkegaard served as the turning point for European philosophy, and Edmund Husserl contributed a new form of the phenomenological method. The influence of these thinkers spread beyond philosophy to theology, depth psychology and social psychology. Although the investigations into the problem of being are carried on by different thinkers with different positions, and although the approach to the problem is made in different fields, all of them have in common an orientation toward the problem of "the modern man," man confronted with both the desire and need for freedom and the frustration encountered In the "objective situation." They all attempt a solution to the problem of freedom with which 214 215 we have been presented: a problem whose solution must lie in the direction of the creation of an individuality which will at the same time take into account the tension of the dialectic of social life and employ some factor or factors which will transcend this tension while not destroying it. The result of our examination of the problem of freedom— the frustration of any attempt to begin by alter ing the social matrix in some way--is accepted by these thinkers as implying that the change must come about in some other way. These thinkers therefore maintain a con tinuity with the tradition of Hegel, Dewey and the political analysts covered in the preceding chapter, in that they are seeking a solution to the paradox with which we have concluded our examination thus far. Jung has put the problem of the tension in terms of "modern man in search of a soul." The modern man is confronted with the importance of things, i.e., externality, and at the same time is aware of the insuf ficiency of these things. He seeks safety in the status quo, but also feels the need to reject it; he seeks a spirituality which transcends it, but does not do violence 216 to it.1 Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre put the same problem in terms of the insufficiency of the lives of the "serious man," the nihilist, and the "adventurer." These types attempt to escape the tension in the ambiguity of human existence and human freedom either by attaching themselves to things in order to become things, thereby becoming non-responsible for their state, or by attaching importance to nothing but pure subjectivity, a state which p is ontologically empty and impossible to maintain. Paul Tillich sees the tension in terms of the ambiguity of the two forms of "courage": the courage to be as a part (any kind of "external" belonging), and the courage to be as oneself (internality).3 Buber speaks of the difference between the "I-it" relationship and the 1C. G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1933)* See especially pp. 125-51 * 196-200. ^Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity (New York: The Citadel Press, 1962). J. P. Sartre, Being and Nothingness (New York: Philosophical Library, 1956), especially pp. 553-56, 625-28. 3paul Tillich, The Courage To Be (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1952). See also Tillich's Love, Power, and Justice (New York: Oxford University Press, I960). 217 "I-thou" relationship.^ Finally, Erich Fromm refers to this tension as the "pathology of n o r m a l c y . "5 The collective significance of these thinkers for the problem of freedom lies in the fact that they all point in the same direction for a solution: they direct us to a search for a ground meaning of individuality which is to be found in the inquiry into what it means to be. What it means to be a human being and to have the problems of man must be explained by a description of human existence in terms of the nature of being, not in terms of the ontic manifestations of this being. Absolute Idealism and Deweyian "naturalism" become ontologism and, more spe cifically, "egologism."6 Individuality must be seen pri marily in relation to being (existentia), secondarily as a relation on the ontic level to the world and to others. ^Martin Buber, I and Thou (Edinburg: T. and T. Clard, 1937)* See also Buber's Between Man and Man (New York: Macmillan Co., 19^7)- ^Erich Fromm, The Sane Society (New York: Rinehart and Co., Inc., 1955)* ^"Egology," from which "egologism" is derived, is used by Husserl in his Cartesian Meditations. I owe my first introduction to the term, however, to one of the lectures in a seminar given by W. H. Werkmeister in which the term was employed to designate the trend In ontology from Husserl on. 218 This does not mean that we are returning to an atomistic, non-social conception of the individual; he is first and foremost a social individual. It is his social ity which causes the problem of the tension which has led to these investigations. What it does mean is that the ontic manifestations of his individuality, through and through social in character, can only be understood and coped with by first understanding human-being. Paul Tillich has given a description of the inquiry into ontology which sums up the quest of all of these thinkers. Ontology does not try to describe the nature of beings, either in their universal, generic qualities, or in their individual, historical manifestations. It does not ask about stars and plants, animals and men. It does not ask about events and those who act within these events. This is the task of scientific analysis and historical description. But ontology asks the simple and infinitely difficult question: What does it mean to be?7 Egology is what may be called a regional ontology which deals with human being. But the question of what it means to be a human is not simply a matter of asking about one region of being among others: human being Is primary, and must be inquired into before one can approach the question "^Tillich, Love, Power, and Justice, p. 19- 219 of being as such. It is primary because it is a human being who is inquiring into, and encountering, being. Hence, the description which can be given of being as such is limited by the possibilities of human being. The question of how one proceeds to investigate being and what sort of verification is applicable to ontological Judgments is also answered by Tillich. There is certainly not an experimental way, but there Is an experiential way. It is the way of an intelligent recognition of the basic ontologi cal structures within the encountered reality, Including the process of encountering itself. The only answer, but a sufficient answer, which can be given to the question of ontological verification is the appeal to Intelligent recognition.8 The concept of being, therefore, Is not something to be reified or hypostatlzed. We are dealing not with "Being," but with "being." The question of being Is the question of what it means to be. As Tillich suggests, scientific analysis and historical description lead to this question. The key to these ontological investigations is that same act of men which first causes the tension to arise: transcendence. For both Hegel and Dewey, as we 8Ibid., p. 24. 220 have seen, the act of transcendence from the Individual qua thought and internality to overt action created the institutions, groups, and "publics" which, in turn, brought about the negativity or conflict. This act of objectifica tion finally led to the problem of the conflict between the status quo and change and the paradox of freedom. Sartre discovers the definitive structure of man in his analysis of this act of transcendence. Man is not primarily a problem-solver as Dewey had seen him; man as a problem-solver is grounded in man as a valuer. This leads Sartre to the question of what it means to value, and how it is possible to value. To value, he maintains, means to strive to become what you are not. Valuing is possible because man is not a thing like a tree or a stone, but a being which of necessity "becomes," fully conscious of his becoming. Problems arise for man because he is a conscious "lack."9 He is free of necessity, that is, he must make choices; and he does not fully realize his freedom unless he chooses conscious of the fact that he is choosing and must choose. The realization of oneself as a ^Sartre, Being and Nothingness, p. 626. lack constitutes authentic action.1° The normative consequence of this analysis is the rejection of both the collective and the atomistic individ ual. Both types of individuals attempt to lose themselves, to reject the necessity of choosing. The collective man is exemplified by "the serious man." This type of individual loses himself in the possession of things and in the anonymity of the status quo with its comfortable relation to others. He is not free, therefore, because he refuses to take on the responsibility of his choices, and he is not even aware that it is he, not the "they," who is ascribing values to things and events. Part of the com fort of the immersion in the status quo is the seeming availability of these "ready-made values" for which "they" are responsible. The paradox of the status quo and his own state of non-freedom never occur to this type of individ ual . The atomistic individual, on the other hand, avoids the paradox in an opposite manner. He attempts to lose himself in egotistically directed actions, taking into l^Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, pp. 126-28. 222 account no individuals other than himself. What this type of individual does not understand is that he is destroyed without these others--he is no longer a human being in any strict sense. He completely rejects what the serious man completely embraces, but in so doing he betrays that which is absolutely necessary for his human!ty--positive recogni tion. The truly free man must encompass both the atomistic and the collective in a synthesis which both retains the essence of the two and transcends their exclusive character. It is individualism in the sense in which the wisdom of the ancients, the Christian ethics of salvation, and the Kantian ideal of virtue also merit this name; it is opposed to the totalitari an doctrines which raise up beyond man the mirage of Mankind. But it is not solipsistic, since the individual is defined only by his relationship to the world and to other individuals; he exists only through transcendence of himself, and his freedom can be achieved only through the freedom of others.I1 There is no formula for the way in which to achieve this freedom. The circle of the paradox remains, and the con flict is even heightened because this individual is fully aware of it. It is only through his own comprehension of 11Ibid., p. 156. his own being that he is able to transcend the conflict while recognizing it. The manner of transcendence involves an attitude of (l) responsibility for one’s own actions and (2) a necessarily implied guilt in so far as the effects of our actions on others are concerned. One must assume the ambiguity of the human situation, yet over come this ambiguity through the strength gained by a conscious realization of it. One cannot change the social matrix, but one can bear it, and thereby transcend it, with the attitude of resoluteness. The direction pointed to by Sartre and de Beauvoir is one of bringing about a change in the conscious orientation of the individual toward the world described by Hegel and Dewey and the contemporary social sciences. This change is an "internal" process. If we turn from Sartre and de Beauvoir to the religious orientation of Paul Tillich, we find the same general analysis. Although Tillich is religiously oriented, he does not maintain an orthodox theological position. His God is not the God against whom Sartre revolted, but a God "above the God of theism." God, for Tillich, is simply being as such, the source of all being. The God against whom Sartre turned is dead for Tillich also. 224 The main characteristic manifested by being Is the power of self-affirmation in the face of negation and otherness. The power of a being is the greater the more non- being is taken into its self-affirmation. The power of being is not dead identity but the dynamic process in which it separates itself from itself and returns to itself. The more conquered separation there is the more power there is.12 Since all being derives its nature from itself as source, Tillich needs a category applicable to human being which exemplifies this characteristic of unity in separation. Instead of the "resoluteness" of Sartre and de Beauvoir, he employs the category of love. The egological meaning of love is a designation of the power of life, the "drive toward the unity of the separated," the drive of "every thing that is toward everything else that Is."1^ Love is the self-affirmation of the belonging-together of being. The relationship between love and the problem of 12Tillich, Love, Power, and Justice, p. 48. Com pare this with Sartre's analysis of human being as a lack. The parallel between this description of a "separation and return to self" and Hegel's two acts of transcendence in Objective and Absolute Spirit is obvious and needs no comment. ^ Ibid., p. 25* Compare Erich Fromm's concept of love as the creative form of transcendence. 225 freedom is made explicit through his analysis of justice. The complete or absolute form of justice is creative jus tice . Creative justice is the "form" of love; in the concrete, love and creative justice are inseparable. This demand for creativity on the part of the individual is a reiteration of the need for a solution to the problem of freedom which will transcend the paradox through an active, internal process of objectification. The basis for creative justice is faith. Faith, for Tillich, does not involve any kind of knowledge or belief, but is a concern--ultimate concern for the ulti mate, infinite concern for the infinite.-1 -^ This concern refers to Tillich's characterization of the God above the God of theism as the source of all being. Spirit is power, grasping and moving out of the dimension of the ultimate. . . . It is dynamic power, overcoming resistance. . . . It works through man's total personality, and this means, through him as finite freedom. It does not remove his freedom, but it makes his freedom free from the compulsory elements which limit it. The Spiritual power gives a centre to the whole per sonality, a centre which transcends the whole •^Tillich, Love, Power, and Justice, pp. 67-71- ^5paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1958), pp. 1-4. 226 personality and, consequently, is independent of any of its elements. And this is ultimately the only way of reuniting the personality with itself. If this happens, man's natural or social power of being becomes irrelevant. He may keep them, he may resign some of them or even all of them. The Spiritual power works through them or it works through the surrender of them.^6 - • This new inner orientation brings about the same synthesis as the resoluteness of Sartre. The courage to be which is rooted in the experi ence of the God above the God of theism unites and transcends the courage to be as a part and the courage to be as oneself. It avoids both the loss of oneself by participation and the loss of one's world by individualization.17 In Buber we find this same analysis, in a more mystical vein, with his distinction between the "I-it" and the "I-thou." Only through true dialogue between man and man and between man and God can we realize the full act of transcendence. Thus, atheistic philosophers, theologians, and psychologists have dealt with the problem of freedom with essentially the same orientation toward a solution. The problem as they conceive of it is the problem as we have confronted it through the analysis of Hegel, Dewey, and the ■ ^ T i l l i c h , Love, Power, and Justice, pp. 120-21. ^Tillich, The Courage To Be, p. 187- 227 contemporary behavioral studies of power. Each of these thinkers points to the self-destructive (or at least self- stultifying) tension present on the ontic level of socio political life. To rebel or to conform are both acts that ultimately lead nowhere. What these thinkers ask for is an awareness, on the part of the social individual, of the structure of his being. With this awareness there comes a change in orientation or attitude which will allow the individual to maintain his integrity as a social individual in the human situation, yet transcend the negativity of the situation. On the surface everything remains the same in the social matrix. The repetitive rhythm of status quo following status quo continues; but the tension between rebellious individuality, meaning loss of the world, and empty conformity, meaning loss of an integrated and meaningful self, is now used to create a freedom which transcends both ontic possibilities for a solution. We have been directed back through Nietzsche who called for the re-evluation of all values, to Hegel. In Paul Tillich the true sense of Hegel’s Absolute Spirit, the return to the self from alienation, is now given a meaning which Hegel never explicitly gave to it. There is now a stress placed 228 upon the spiritual, non-conceptual comprehension of this alienation, an aspect which eluded Hegel’s grasp because of his faith in man’s reason. The hierarchy of Absolute Spirit now goes from Art through Philosophy to Religion (in a new sense of the religious) instead of from Art through Religion to Philosophy. The tenor of this new development in the problem of freedom may be summed up in the following way. All men need to choose of necessity, but most men choose by default. The "authentic man" must choose by intention, accepting the guilt of his choice. In order to do this he must be aware of his relation to Being. This solution to the problem of freedom is not one which will embrace all men, but only those who gain the insight into this relation to being and act upon that insight. This is the will of those of noble soul: <:hey desire nothing gratis, least of all life. --Nietzsche I BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY Adler, Mortimer J. The Idea of Freedom: A Dialectical Examination of the Conceptions of Freedom. New York: Doubleday and Co., 1958. ■ Battle, John J. The Metaphysical Presuppositions of the Philosophy of John Dewey. Fribourg, 1951* Barker, Ernest. Principles of Social and Political Theory. London: Oxford University Press, 1956. Barnett, Lincoln. The Universe and Dr. Einstein. 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Creator Flay, Joseph Charles (author)

Core Title Hegel And Dewey And The Problem Of Freedom

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

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Advisor Werkmeister, William H. (committee chair), Boskin, Joseph (committee member), Long, Wilbur H. (committee member)

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