Existentialism, Realistic Empiricism and Materialism

7/29/2019 Existentialism, Realistic Empiricism and Materialism

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International Phenomenological Society

Existentialism, Realistic Empiricism, and MaterialismAuthor(s): Roy Wood SellarsSource: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Mar., 1965), pp. 315-332Published by: International Phenomenological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2106094

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EXISTENTIALISM,REALISTICEMPIRICISM,ANDMATERIALISM

I was asked recently to outline my ideas on contendingpositionsincontemporary hilosophy.This was to be for a paper to be read for asection meeting of the Eastern Division of the American PhilosophicalAssociation.What I producedwas a rathertechnical affair. I have sincethought that indicationsof perspectivemight be more fruitful.Philosophicalcross-fertilizations, surely, desirable.I have the impres-sion that British and American analysts are so engrossed in specificproblems within their frame of referencethat they are not always fullyaware of their assumptions.Much the same, I think, holds for existenti-alists and for dialecticalmaterialists. t is just possible that the outlookof a philosopherwho does not belong to any of these three movementsyet appreciates heir emphasesmay be stimulating. am going to beginwith some introductory emarks n the way of orientation.My first remark s to the effect that I do not thinkthat analystshavepaid sufficient attention to epistemology. Here I speak as a realisticempiricist.I have the impressionthat many analysts waver betweenphenomenalism nd a kind of behavioristicnaive realism. Queries alongthese lines seem to me to be in order.Existentialistspay little attention to the empiricisttradition. Yet itshould be plain that empiricism has long opposed essentialism alongsemi-nomimalisticines. Being is not reducibleto abstract hought.Thispoint in commonbetweenexistentialism nd empiricism houldbe recog-nized. Some measureof cross-fertilization etweenempiricismand exist-entialismwould seem to be called for.

There are two types of materialismn the philosophicalworldtoday,dialecticalmaterialism nd evolutionary,or non-reductive,materialism.believe that a debate between these two types would be fruitful.Whatthey have in common is a need for a realistic foundation.Both areopposedto phenomenalism r positivism.I have recentlytried to furtherthis demandby bringingout the role of sensation n perceiving.As I seeit, perceiving s referential nddirected, n a responseway, at the externalthing but is guided by informativesensations.I speak here of a from-and-to circuit.The meaningof "dialectic"s under debate.I shall not go into that,

315


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316 PHILOSOPHYNDPHENOMENOLOGICALESEARCHfor it seems to be the job of Marxismto come to terms with its tradi-tions. On this side, we hear much of the de-materialization f matter.This expressionwould seem to refer to the changed idea of the natureof matter.It is no longer conceivedas solid, uniform and simple. Thisis certainlyan advance.But I wouldhazardthe opinion that it makes asophisticatedmaterialismmore plausible.I do not find the introductionin scienceof a new type of being.But there is recognitionof novelty oforganization nd of capacities.Geneticistsspeak of the gene-pool as thebasis of culturalevolution.For all these reasons, I am advocatinga debate between empiricists,existentialistsand materialists.

A few autobiographicalemarksmay be relevant.I studied n FranceandGermany n 1909. PoincareandBergsonwere outstanding n France.I had two long talks with Bergsonand was bold enough to outline theidea of emergence n contrast o his more vitalistic stance. He suggestedthat I study under Driesch at Heidelberg, which I did. I sometimeswonder what he would think of recent advances n the biochemistryofproteins with the stress on codes and messengers,etc. All this was longbefore the rise of existentialism.Since, for reasonsI shall give, I shalltake Sartreas representative f existentialism, should like to call atten-tion to Bergson's Matter and Memory. Here he stresses "images,"asmuch as Sartredoes "appearance." do think they have something ncommon.It will be my thesis that Americancritical realismhas a moreadequatenotion of the mechanismof perceiving.This will have its influence on my conception of consciousnessand the level of the "For-itself." I would say that my approachis more evolutionarythan isSartre's.But it is a pleasureto clash with so keen an intellect.In the philosophicalsweepstakesof the present, then, there seem tobe three main internationalcontenders:(1) Anglo-Americanempiricalphilosophy; (2) Marxism in terms of dialectical materialism;and (3)existentialism.Thomism, as a perennial philosophy, operates in thebackground.It is my intention o take two steps backward,as it were, and look atthese threemovements.I am not here concernedwith communismas asocial movement. t is morecloselyconnectedwith historicalmaterialism.Into the interconnections etween dialectical materialismand historicalmaterialismI shall not go here, for it is a complex topic. Sartreisprobablyrightin maintaininghat dialecticalmaterialism endsto acceptthe thesis that evolution is in line with progressin a thesis-antithesis-synthesissort of way. Emergentevolutionis less predictive.But I wantto registermy feelingthat Marxthoughtthat stalemateand chaosmightbe a possibility.


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EXISTENTIALISM, REALISTIC EMPIRICISM, AND MATERIALISM 317I have the impressionthat both Anglo-Americanempiricismanddialecticalmaterialism oncernthemselvesmore with science than does

existentialism.Existentialism mphasizes he humancondition,highlightsit. But neitherJaspersnor Sartrecompletely gnoresscience.It is thus amatterof emphasis.But Marxismand Anglo-American mpiricismhavesomewhatdifferentslantson the scientificview of the world. I shall tryto explainwhat I mean later. It must suffice to say that I thinkBritishand Americanempiricismshave been too muchdominatedby positivismand pragmatism,whileMarxismhas thought oo muchin termsof Hegel'smarch from thesis to antithesis o synthesis.These variations n textureare importantn the long run. I confess that my own outlook,which Ihave workedout over many years, beginningbefore the RussianRevo-lution itself, is more realisticthan eitherpositivismor pragmatismandhas been concernedwith novelty,or emergence, n nature.I shall try tospell all this out later. It may be enoughat this point to say that I havebeen concernedwith evolutionary evels in nature,with the efficacy ofmindand consciousness,andwiththe importof whatis commonlycalledfreewillor responsibledecision.A few generalwords about the third memberof our trio, Existenti-alism. I capitalizeit becauseit is that sort of thing.Now it seemsto be the case that,after Sartrecalledhimselfan existen-tialist, some of the others felt uncomfortablewith the label. He was asort of enfant terrible with his bold theses of atheistichumanismandabsolutecommitment.Heideggerdid not quite like the emphasesandstressedhis own interest n Being and a kind of absoluteontology.Thisis interesting ecauseHeidegger, he German,was, in a manner,a teacherof Sartre.He is the older man. Jaspers,anotherGerman,had what Iwouldcall a vague,Neo-Kantianoutlookand a mild theismin the black-ground.And then there were the overtly religious and theologically-inclined existentialists, hose who affiliatedthemselveswith the Dane,Kierkegaard.One can, I think,associateherethe Protestant,Tillich,andthe RomanCatholic,Marcel.All in all, then,Existentialisms a term for a clusterof positions.YetI do think they have somethingin common against Anglo-Americanempiricismand Marxism.In many ways, it has functionedas a sort ofthirdphilosophicalorce. This is partlydue to overtones.Its ethicalter-ninology had an emotive flavor in such ideas as authenticity,commit-ment,bad faith, the spurningof the impersonaland average.And it hadliteraryexpressions n Sartre,in accordancewith the French tradition.I doubt that Camuswas, technicallyspeaking,an existentialistbut hiswritingsblendedwith featuresof the movement.All in all, then, Existentialism s a movementto be appraised udi-


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318 PHILOSOPHY ND PHENOMENOLOGICALESEARCHcially. It has its own dimensions n human ife. Perhapsthe question, sowidelyaskedthesedays,of the "meaning" f human ife defines its centerof interest.This term, of course,needs definition.One can readily talkof the meaningof the wordlion, but to talk about the meaningof lionsis somethingelse again.But man is an animalwho can ask questions.Thatis a pointthat Heideggermakes.And he certainlycan ask questionsabout the relation of the world to what we call purposesand values.Does naturein the large concernitself with these items? Does the oldidea of Providencehave application?Of course, these are not new questions. We all remember Ruskin'spathetic allacy.But it is, not surprisinghat, in this centuryof wars andrevolutions,of an increased empo of change, these questionsshould beasked more imperatively. shall askthe background uestion:What havethe Existentialistsdone in the way of clarification?By confronting hemwith Anglo-American mpiricismand Marxist materialism,ight may bethrown on the issues. I shall try to be as little technicalas possible or,betteryet, to explain such technicalities s are needful.This can be calledan exploratoryoperation.I have decidedto emphasizeSartre n my study of existentialism ustbecause it is easier to know where he is. Or, to express it better, justabout where he is. I am remindedhere of modernelectrontheory. It isimpossibleto tell precisely where the outer electronsof an atom are ina chemical reaction.What we have is a sort of wave phenomenon.Thereis somethingof this, n Sartre.But I find him fascinating. shall use themethodof contrast.I knowprettywell whereI stand on the sameques-tions. I find more of a touch of empiricismn his theses than I find inJaspersor Heidegger.I supposethis expressesthe continuing nfluenceof Descarteson Frenchthought.Rationalismandempiricismhave, in thisregard,somethingin common.Both tend to be analytic. Descartes, Ithink,couldhave understoodLocke andHume,even thoughhe disagreedwith them. While I have made greatefforts to appreciateHeideggerandJaspers,I find theirmodesof thoughta little alien. There is a tendencyto call on intuition.Heidegger s makinga tremendous ffort to penetrateto the revealabledepths of Being. He turns his back on representational,or correspondence,heoriesof truth, somethingwhich,I think, is tied inwith scientific achievement.

We havehere whatI wouldcall anothergenrein philosophicalhought.It is well to be acquaintedwith it and to do justiceto it. But it is alsowell to contrast t with others. That is why I am studyinga trio, and forthis purpose, I think that Sartre is most useful. His outlook is franklynaturalisticand humanistic,as both Anglo-AmericanempiricismandMarxism end to be, thoughhe likes to shock the bourgeoisie,much as


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EXISTENTIALISM, REALISTIC EMPIRICISM, AND MATERIALISM 319Benard Shawdid in his day. One must get a firmgraspon his terms.Heplays with them dialectically.Being-for-itselfhas a hankeringto beBeing-in-itself nd can't be. In this fashion he tries to show thatthe veryidea of God is a contradiction.Now I have a quite differentnotion ofBeing-for-itselfor conscious being, approachedalong evolutionaryandrealisticlines. I think the contrastwill be interesting.So much in the way of introductory ndications.I have decidedthatit will be best for expositorypurposes to begin with an outline, so tospeak,of Britishand Americanempiricismand then pass to Diamat. Thestudy of Existentialismcan then come and its genre be all the moreappreciatedby way of contrast.

Remarks on Anglo-AmericanEmpiricismIt is well to take two steps back from the controversiesof the hourto get perspective. shall be a little heretical;but then, one has the rightto one's own perspectiveso long as he can offer a justification.American philosophy, at the beginning of the twentieth century,reflecteda transition rom an idealismdominatedby the thoughtof Kantand Hegel to the more empiricaland pragmaticideas of James andDewey. There was a greaterstress on time and on action. Much of thecontroversyurned around he notion of truth.For the idealist,truthhadbeen largelya logical affair.Both its meaningand its tests were tied. nwith the principleof coherence.The more inclusivea consistentset ofideas was the more it approachedAbsoluteTruth. Such Absolute Truthwas a limit to be approximated.Therewas a spiritualistic ackgroundnthis type of philosophyand a tendency to identifyAbsoluteTruthwith

Absolute Mind. Matter andmaterialism ad been left far behindin thesespeculations. have always felt that Berkeleyand his doctrine hat to beis to be perceivedhad a continuing nfluence.Now pragmatism or, as Dewey came to call it, instrumentalist -representeda definite shift of ground. The emphasiswas on time andaction. Ideas, William James averred,were made true by their conse-quences.In a broad sense, that is true whichworks;in the long run andon the whole, of course. The talk tended to be about beliefs, perhapsbecauseJames was a psychologistas well as philosopher.He even spokeof the will to believe,or the rightto believe,if therewas a livingoption.It shouldbe notedthat Jameslinked himselfup more with the Britishempirical raditionof Locke,Hume,Mill andBain than withthe GermanthinkersKant and Hegel. He wanted to be concretein his thinking,tokeep abstract deas in touch with perceptualexperience.Sometimeshisphrasingwas a little too concrete,as when he spoke of the cash-value


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320 PHILOSOPHYNDPHENOMENOLOGICALESEARCHof ideas. At suchtimes,his desire for a vivid style got the betterof him.But such lapses were rare. Good writingran in the James family. Hisfather was a brilliantconversationalistand his brother Henry was amaster of prose.JohnDewey, who was to exert such a prolonged nfluenceon Ameri-can thought, was early trained in Kant and Hegel and only slowlydeparted rom them, partly under the stimulus of William James andpartlybecause of the impact of Darwinian hought.He beganto empha-size the role of reflectionand of problem-solving.He becamepersuadedthatthe job of humanthoughtwas not to reproducea cosmic pattern na constitutiveway but to handle situations as these confrontedman.Ideas, he came to hold,wereinstrumentsn suchadjustments.Experiencewas something o be reconstituted.Therewas nothingbeyondexperience,nothingtranscedentalo be mirrored n thought.Thinkingwas forward-looking,an affairof plans andprojects.Clearly, his is a formof activismand it did agree with the Americantemperament.American cultureisusuallyregardedas pragmatic;and James and Dewey are considered tsspokesmen.And there is a greatdeal of truthin this assumption.But we must not oversimplify.Therewas anothercurrent n pragma-tism associatedwith the name of C. S. Peirce.Peirce was a scientistanda mathematician,aware of the importanceof scientificmethod. Some-thing of this emphasiswas passed on to Dewey. Hence we must notignore the element n the pragmatic raditionof the recognitionof science.So much, in broadoutline, is the first shift in Americanphilosophicalthought from a ratherformalidealism,largely taken over from Europe,to novel stresseson ideas as instrumentsand upon ideas as plans ofaction. I think it was a healthydevelopmentbut a little one-sided.As one mightexpect, the next generationcoming after James,Peirceand Dewey sought to quality and add to pragmatism.There was thefeeling that somethinghad been left out. Had justice been done to theclaims expressed n humanknowing?Was there not anotherdimensionto humanknowledgeandto the idea of truth?How about the vast worldof naturewhich science was exploring?Did not human ideas have to,somehow,correspondo what is there?Now this was an old gambitbutit had apparentlybeen ignoredin the controversybetween idealismandpragmatism.One reason for this were certaindifficulties nherent n anold framework et up by JohnLocke. It goes with whatis usuallycalledthe causaltheoryof perception.We don'tperceiveunless our senseorgansare stimulated.What,then,do we perceive?Locke'sanswerwas thatwefirstof all perceiveour sensationsand images,called,takentogether,ourideas. How, then, do we get to externalthings,the sortof objectssciencetalksabout. In Locke'sday, this was the worldof Sir IsaacNewton,the


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EXISTENTIALISM, REALISTIC EMPIRICISM, AND MATERIALISM 321world of mass and gravitation.Today it is the world of electrons,atomsand genes.

Locke never masteredhis dilemma. Roughly speaking,he resortedtoa kind of pragmatic nference and the faith that ideas resembledwhathe called the primaryqualities of external things, extension, mass, etc.perception; hat is, that our percepts, which are experienced,representsomethingotherthan themselves.But how can we know this? And howcan the belief be tested? Berkeley and Hume gave this gambit up as abad job. What we call British empiricismcame to stress sensationsandimages.The young men after James and Dewey returned o this problem totest it afresh. There were two groups called, respectively,the newrealistsand the critical realists. The first group gave up representativerealism as something mpossibleto revise. The drastic move was, then,to hold that external things are simply presentedas they are. This is aform of naive realismto the effect that thereare no such entitiesas sub-jective sensationsbut that the externalthing is open to inspectionwhenwe respond to the stimulationof our senseorgans.That is, we just seethings. Modern behaviorismhas a touch of this kind of realism.Perry,Montagueand Holt took this position, notwithstanding bviousdifficul-ties, because they saw no-alternative.The critical realists - there were seven of them including myself -sought anotherkindof direct realism.I may mention Santayana,Strong,Drake and Lovejoy as workingalong this line. I am the only one left ofboth the new realists and the critical realists. And I have had a longtime to analyze and reflect. The solution to the problem of perceivingI have worked out is, in general,as follows: I take the unit on whichperceiving ests to be a circuitfromthe object stimulating he percipientorganismto a directedresponseto the same object. This is a guidedresponseand, at the human level, quite clearly,the information omingto the organismenablesit to decipher eaturesof the object.This opera-tion is lifted to the level of perceptual udgment n whichstatementscanbe made aboutthe external thing. Thus, I say that I see this tree withits branchesand green leaves. Much takesplace before this cognitiveclaim is made.I have not the space here to go into details about this view of per-ceiving. I call it a direct, referentialview of a realistic type. And I dothink it has promise. There goes with it, quite naturally, a double-knowledge, identity theory of the mind-brain ituation.That is, I thinkthat we can know about the brain from the outside as neurology doesand also, as a subject, participate n its working.I am inclined to thinkthat sensationsguide the activity of the brain and that concepts are


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322 PHILOSOPHYNDPHENOMENOLOGICALESEARCHdeveloped n the cortexfor much the same function. Words like seeingand judgingand valuingreflect the achievements f the brain-mind. seethis thingand appraisethis possible act. I see no theoreticalneed for adualism n these evolutionarydays. I may also mention the point thatsuch a functionalview can do justiceto what is plausiblein the notionof "freewill" nd personal responsibility.We have to work out decisionsfor they are not predeterminedor us. We do so with differentdegreesof wisdom. Whatall free men dislikeis compulsion rom outside. Need-less to say, there are manydetails, hat I cannot take up here, such asthat of neuroses. As, I think you can see, there are many fascinatingtopics. On the whole, then, I think that the realistic, evolutionaryap-proach in American philosophical houghtwas a promisingone. But Imust turn to Britishempiricalphilosophy.This is symbolizedby G. E. MooreandBertrandRussell. Moore con-tributed he methodof analysiswhich later became increasingly inguistic.He was a meticulousthinker. Like the Americansof my generationhelaid much stressupon the need to work out a satisfactoryview of per-ceiving. He was a convinced realist but, it seemedto me that what hecalled sense-data a sort of alias for sensations got in his way. Hecould not manage to connect up sense-datawith materialthings.It willbe recalled that I regardthem as used, in perceiving, o guide the per-cipient and to give informationaboutthe external hing controllingt. Inordinaryparlance, he thing appears n the sensationsand this appearingis used to decipher he object so that we can make statementsaboutit.That, I take it, is why science puts so much stressupon sensoryverifi-cation.BertrandRussellsoughtto combine symbolic ogic with Hume's stressupon sense-impressions s the primaryobjects of our knowledge.He isa very able man and a master of prose. But, as you can see, I did notbelieve that he understoodwhat I have called the circuitunderlyingper-ceiving.Britishphilosophywas not, as a whole, as much in contact withmodem psychologyas Americanphilosophywas. There are always cul-tural discontinuities n these matters. While there was more kinshipbetweenBritishandAmerican hought han is usuallythe case, the diver-gence was there. As we shall note, German philosophy tended to beintentionally elf-isolated.I suppose national pride played a part in thisseparationbut it is alwaysunfortunate. t has, I am sure, affected thedevelopment of Existentialism.The Germans do not like British andAmerican empiricismand its linkage with science. Philosophy is, forthem, somethingapart,speculativeand having a traditionand momentumof its own. Sartrecame under German nfluencebut, like a trueFrench-man, kept up the Cartesianstresson reason.


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EXISTENTIALISM, REALISTIC EMPIRICISM, AND MATERIALISM 323But a few closing remarkson British thought.What is called logicalpositivism ame fromVienna n the twentiesand thirties nto both Englandand the United States.The stress here was upon a proposal to definemeaning n terms of verification.The meaningof a statementwas to bein terms of the methodof its verification.Since the perspectivewas thatof Hume, the implicationwas what we call phenomenalism.The worldwas reducible o actual, or possible, sensations. You can see that thisassumption onflictedwith my kind of realism for which sensationsareinformational bout somethingother than themselves.The logical positivists created a furor because they held that onlyscientificand logical statementsare, in the strictsense, meaningful.This

impliedthat theologicalstatementsand even moral ones were meaning-less. This thesis created,very naturally,muchdiscussion.It had pointonits own terms. How can you verify theologicalstatements?On the whole,it forced theologians o reexamine heir mode of argumentand was, sofar, healthy.I supposethat is one reason why religious hought,such asTillich's, has turned to Existentialism.I shall make some incidentalremarkson this topic in the conclusion.I believe that I am justifiedin sayingthat logical positivismhas shotits bolt. It has been qualifiedand qualified.First, it was realizedthatall sorts of statementsare meaningful n their own terms. This line isbeing developed by the "ordinary language"movement centered atOxford.The aim here is to clarify statements.And then the phenome-nalisticaspectof positivismwithits view that sensationsareterminalwasincreasingly hallenged.Don't we talk about materialthings?There aresigns that some form of directrealismis in the making.At least, thereis a renewed nterest n realism.I am ratherhopefulthat it will take thelines I have here outlined.WhataboutDialectical Materialism?

Americans hould know something, n an objectiveway, about dialec-tical materialism. have already pointed out that historical materialismwith its stresson the economicbase of society and its belief in the class-strugglein the nineteenth-centuryorm is not identical with it. Mostpeople believe that Marx had a point in stressingthe economic side ofsociety but that he was too belligerent.Perhapsthat was a matter of histemperamentand of the times in which he lived. I used to teach socialand political philosophyat the Universityof Michiganand studied thesequestionsprettythoroughly. belongedto a generationof prewar iberalswho were influencedby Bernard Shaw, the Webbs and H. G. Wells.Roughly speaking,we held to what is called today a mixed economywith a public sector, the sort of thing advocatedthese days by Walter


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324 PHILOSOPHYNDPHENOMENOLOGICALESEARCHLippman,Galbraithand others. We were all for gradualismand for thedemocratic approach. It seems that today in the United States we hearonly of the great center of contented persons. I do not think that Ameri-cans should be too contented.It is, after all, a changingworld with anincreased empo.But I must not pursuethis side issue. I may remark that there is agreat nterest n European ircles n what is calledthe Young Marx, whosewritingshave been recovered. Some Marxist revisionists anchor theirthought on him. That was before he had moved to England and con-centratedon economics. The industrial revolutionin England in thisperiodwas pretty grim. One has only to read Charles Dickens and hisnovel, Hard Times, to realize that. The economyof abundancehad notyet arrived.Dialecticalmaterialismwas, in essentials,a fusion of scientificmate-rialism and Hegelian dialectic. Hegel was the philosopher n Germany.He had worked out a logic of a peculiarsort. It was contrastedwithtraditional ogic, which stressed consistencyand non-contradiction.Thisnew logic was supposed to reflect, and correspond o, a kind of innermovement n reality,a movementwhich went with oppositionand nega-tion. It was the belief of Hegel that he had seized upon a kind ofdynamic in the nature of things. Let us recall that he was an idealistand identifiedReason with Reality.He thoughthe had found a principleof development n Reason, a kind of inner goad leadingto growth,asort of inevitableprogression.Hegel's great strengthwas in history.Butthis seemedto involve inevitableprogress.MarxandEngelstook off from here but with some aid fromFeuerbachwho had queried Hegel's idealism.I think that ProfessorSidneyHookis quite rightin holdingthat Feuerbachhas been too neglecteda figurein the historyof philosophy.The YoungMarxhadlong been influencedby the Enlightenment,ustas our Jeffersonwas. In all this we must have an historicalsense. Ourforefatherswere not too sold on Europe at this time. But ours was afortunatesituation, though we did make some mistakes. Who doesn't?But let us returnto dialecticalmaterialism.We said it expressesafusion, of an odd kind, of scientificmaterialismand Hegelian dialecticwitha stress on development.n his interesting ssay on Materialism ndRevolution, Sartre criticizesthe note of inevitableprogress n Marxism.He is not so optimistic.And yet, as we shall see, he was, himself, muchinfluencedby Hegel and speaks much of negationand negativities.Hisbasicterms,Being-in-itselfandBeing-for-itself, re translations f Hegel'sAn-Sichand Ffir-Sich,In-itself and For-itself.So it should not surprise us that Engels, the companion of Marx,


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EXISTENTIALISM, REALISTIC EMPIRICISM, AND MATERIALISM 325worked out formulaefor this tensionalprogressionof reality.He writesof the unity of opposites,of negationof the negation,of quantityat criti-cal pointschanging nto quality,of the unity of theory andpractice.Thislast point has its merits.The much disputedquestion is the relevanceof these formulae forconcrete nvestigation.Of what help are they to the sciences?Seeingthatthey arenot used in the West wherescience has made its greateststridesand have been challengedby physicists n the Soviet Union, it is ques-tionablewhetherthey contributemuch. They may be said to symbolizethe fact that ours is a restlessuniverse and not static. But, as I havefollowed nternational iscussion, t is becomingclear that Sovietphiloso-phers are becomingsuspiciousof mere lists of examplesof, for example,quantity urning nto quality and want detailedinvestigationof all thathappenswhen boilingwater turns into steam or when a mutationoccurs.It is also becomingapparentthat both Polish and Soviet thinkers arestressingmodernmathematicalogic and ignoringdialectical ogic.Engelswas an able man but reflected the philosophicalsituation of his time.What we can admit is that he was rightlyconvinced that change is ofthe natureof things.ManchesterLaissez Faire is not an eternalschemeof. a fixed naturallaw. Institutionsmust be adjusted o new conditionsand possibilities.No one who studies the succession of problemsfacedby Russianmanagersas they are confrontedby the demandfor qualityin productioncan doubt this. And our consumereconomyhas its ownproblems,as Galbraithhas spelledout.But let us turn back to the materialisticaspect of dialectucalmate-rialism.It should be recognized hatMarxrejectedmechanicaland whathe called "metaphysicalmaterialism."These, he thought, did not dojusticeto history,whichwashis forte.He evencriticizedFeuerbachalongthis line, holdingthat he had returned oo much to physiologicalmate-rialism.And now let us look at Lenin,who was,forcedto do systematicworkin philosophy.This was because some of his Marxist contemporarieswere being influencedby the Vienna physicist and philosopher,ErnstMach, who was an empiricistof the Hume type. That is, he wantedtoreduce material hingsto sensations.

Now Lenin was convincedthat this was a wrong move; and so hesought to establishrealism. Now I do think that realism in theory ofknowledgeprocedes any materialism,as a conditionof it. Materialismis what we call in philosophy an ontology; that is, a discourse about whatis. I note that Thomistsalwaysmakethis point. Theirsis whatthey calla formalmaterialism, omething hatgoes back to Aristotle.Its weakness


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326 PHILOSOPHYNDPHENOMENOLOGICALESEARCHis, I believe, that Aristotle did not, quite naturally,have the modernconceptionof matter.It willbe recalled hat I suggested hatperceiving s directlyreferentialand is guidedby sensations o thatwe, as it were,look throughourvisualfield at the things we are responding o. I argued hat our senses give usinformationwhich we use in deciphering hingsand makingstatementsaboutthem.Lenin did not quitework this out but he was convinced hatpositivism was mistaken.There can be little doubt that Lenin was anable man. I am inclined to thinkthat Masaryk,whomProfessorWarrenhas so carefullystudied,was of the same caliber.Philosopher-statesmenare not very common.EdmundBurke was of this type; and Americanshave reason to rememberhis sympathywith the AmericanCause.But even if a realistic heory of knowledgeenablesus to get cognitivelyto an externalmaterialworldwe still have the problem of workingoutits constitution.And here we must, I think, take evolution and noveltyvery seriously. The highershould not be reduced to the lower. If mindand consciousness merge and become efficaciouswe shouldtry to workout theirtechnique. do not believe we canunderstand uman ife other-wise. I have long advocatedwhat I have called levels of causality.Thisoutlook is called non-reductive.Every attemptis made to do justice tothe novel.And, of course,the outstandingeaturesof human'life,reason,culture,the achievementof knowledgeand control,must be recognized.The results of physics.,chemistry,biology, psychologyand the socialsciences must find room in an inclusiveperspective.Even philosophyofhistoryhas its relevance.I incline to agreewith ProfessorIsaiah Berlinof Oxford that there has been too much impersonalismn history.Thetendency is to wait, ratherpassively, upon mass,movements.I concludethat dialecticalmaterialismalignsitself with sciencebut isin the throes of evaluatingthe import of dialecticalprincipleslargelyinheritedfrom Hegel. Just how this will be workedout remains to beseen. It is no simplematter.

The Foundationsof ExistentialismI am going to pass now to a considerationof the third of my trio,Existentialism. t has a vogue on the Continentwhereit developedandhas affectedreligiousthinking,particularly, n this side of the Atlantic.

It has a hortatoryway of stressing ndividuality, uthenticity, nxietyandfreedom.The humanconditionbulks large in its presentations.There isless concernwith logic and theory of knowledgeand the sciences. Forthese reasons,it is a sort of genreof its own.Most expositionsof it begin with Kierkegaardwith his aversion toHegel's impersonalismand his shift to the subjectiveand a leep of


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EXISTENTIALISM, REALISTIC EMPIRICISM, AND MATERIALISM 327faith, not altogetherunlike William James's "Will to Believe." Curiouslyenough, Nietzsche is always included, though he was, critical of Chris-tianity. I suppose what they have in common is a concern with humanlife. Existentialisms what theGermanscall Lebensphilosophie, philos-ophy of human ife, a concern with the humansituation.I do not want to give the reader the impression that British andAmerican philosophersare not concernedwith the human condition. Itis only that they want to approach t with as few untestedassumptionsas possible. On the whole, they are modest and want to cooperatewiththe relevantsciences. Where they have inheritedproblems,they want toclarify these as much as possible.

The interactionof empiricalphilosophy and of existentialismshouldbe stimulating o both. But it will take time. What I shall try to bringout is the need for breakingdown internationalbarriers.It will be recalledthat I chose Sartreas my exemplarof Existentialismin place of Jaspers or Heidegger. That is because it is easier, on thewhole, to know his assumptions.This comes, in part, from his Frenchlucidity.Heideggeruses the German anguage n a veryidiomatic ashion.Thatmaybe one of his strengths n specificpoints.But we want to understandhis general outlook. Like Sartre, he started from Husserl'sdescriptivemethod but got interested n ontology, that is, in Sein and Being. Theinfluenceof Kierkegaards noticeablehere. It is care that makesone askultimatequestions.He began with a sort of descriptiveanalysisof humanlife. Time standsout in man'slife for he is always lookingto the future.He has nol fixed essence but is a changing project. He uses tools whichare at hand(zuhanden). n the backgroundheregrows up an awarenessof thingswhichare gradually tudiedby the sciences.But Heideggerdoesnot concernhimself with scientific methods.As has frequently eenpointedout, there is some resemblancebetweenthis outlookand that of pragmatism. ohn Dewey is said to' have notedit. But Heidegger sought to make his peace with Kant and, under theguidanceof anxiety,press beyondKant'sagnosticism.As nearly as I canmakeout, he soughta kindof intuitionof Being in a metahpysicalway.Truthis an unveilingof Being. This outlook involveda rejectionof thecorrespondenceheory of truth whichhad been dominantsince Aristotle,in all but pragmatic ircles. All this led Heidegger o make researchesnpre-SocraticGreek philosophyand in Garmanpoetry.All this representsan intense effort of its kind. And one must putoneself,as nearlyas one can, in Heidegger'splace. I think it is easiertograsp Sartre'sassumptions.And I think that I knowjustwhereI divergefrom him.


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328 PHILOSOPHYNDPHENOMENOLOGICALESEARCHJaspers s a very prolificwriter. There is a good deal of wisdom inhis commentson the world situation. But I am concernedhere with

frameworks.As I see it, Jasperstakes his point of departurerom Kantand seeks to pass between the subject-object onstruction o Somethingwhich is All-Encompassing nd thus to a mild form of theism.Now I,as a realist, do not accept the traditionalnotion of the correlationofsubjectand object. I think we make externalthingsobjectsof our per-ceivingand thinkingand learnfacts aboutthem. So, you see, I have nobase for Jasper'sEncompassing.The divergencebeginsrighthere. It isa matterfor theoryof knowledge o explore.I shall now turn to Sartre.Sartre s a brilliantessayistand playwright. n this he belongsto theFrench, literary,tradition.I shall, however,devote myself to his greatwork, Being and Nothingness.I shall try to get clear in my mind hisnotion of Being-in-itselfand Being-for-itself.And, in what sense, is con-sciousnessNothingness? shall likewisetryto understand is middlewaybetweenrealismand idealism. It will soon become apparent ust whereI differfrom him. To put it briefly,I thinkof consciousnessas a func-tional activity involvingsensationsand ideas, while he defines it as atranslucentawareness f appearances.He is enabled n this way to defineit as a Nothingnessand a sort of hole in Being which breaks up anycause-effect continuity. Consciousness is, as it were, the locus of freshstarts and thus of Absolute Freedom. I, on the other hand, think of levelsof causalityandregardconsciousnessand mind as ingredientsn problem-solvingand new integrations. have a highrespect or the brain andholdthat the individualparticipatesn its working.What I shall try to bring out is how Sartremanipulateshis termstoget his results. Then I shall offer my alternative.

Sartrestartsfrom Husserl,who focuses on a descriptive ogic ratherthan on theory of knowledge. What he takes from Husserl is the thesisthat consciousness s always intentionaland is awarenessof somethingother than itself. He then takes the step of seekinga pre-reflective tagewhich will free consciousness rom self-consciousness.At this level, theself becomes an objectalong with other objects;and one escapesthe trapof an isolated subjectivism.It soon becomesclear that Sartre s seekingto avoidmaterialism orshall we call it realism? on the one hand, and idealism,on the other.As we saw in the study of dialecticalmaterialism, ealismis the correctepistemologicalexpression.One can get to materialism,as an ontology,only throughrealism. As I pointedout, the Thomistsare well awareofthisrequirementndhave stresseda certain ncompletenessn the Marxistanalysisof perceiving. have met this by showing the use made of sen-


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EXISTENTIALISM, REALISTIC EMPIRICISM, AND MATERIALISM 329sationsin perceivingand their informationalunction.I shall say some-thing more aboutthis situationshortly.But let us returnto Sartre.How does he endeavorto move betweenrealismand idealism?By a sort of compromise.Cognitionis, for him,an affair of intuitionor givenness.And we can intuit both "materialthings"and the "psychical."But can we intuit materialthings? Only if they are identifiedwithappearances. artre s,here caughtup in the Kantiandistinctionbetweenphenomenaand noumenal things-in-themselves,which are unknowable.And he decides to reject the latter, quite rightly.He does,not explorethe view I have been defending hat perceiving s a directedresponse nwhichappearings re used as cues and indicationsof what is appearing,so that perceiving s referentiallyconcernedwith external things whichare not so much intuitedas, describedon the basis,of receivedinforma-tion. Not havingexploredthis possibility,Sartreconcludesthat materialthingsare simply profilesof appearances.Any sense of transphenome-nalityis due to a sense of resistanceand independence.Herewe have, then, Being-in-itself. It is a plenitudewith no inside.Ithas no secrets.It is solid and self-identical. supposewe can call this aform of naive realism.It links up with Cartesianand Bergsonianmatteras extension.But, in human experience,there is a correlationand fusion. Con-sciousness, or the For-itself, contributesparticularity,order, change,valueandinstrumentality. heseare, as it were,projectedon the massiveplenitude.Heidegger'spragmatismand stress on projectscomes to thefront. The idea of the "materialworld"as a totality is a construct.Sois that of the self as,a psychicalwhole. These are correlates;and so weescapebothmaterialism nd idealism.It is all veryingenious.In a sense,manmakeshis world.But the Subjectneithersecretesit nor has the jobof knowingsomethingcompletelyaliento it. By takingconsciousnessas,by its very nature,an awarenessof somethingother than itself Sartreseeks to lay a new foundation.Let us try to understand is manipulationsand then offer our alternative.Consciousness,or Being-for-itself,can hardly be explainedin termsof Being-in-itself. t is fundamentallya Nothingness.It is not the Ego,which is a construct. t is a Nothingnesswhichis an activity.It is a holein Being-in-itselfbut a hole which has initiative.This initiative is itsFreedom.Here we have a dualism which puzzles commentators.SometimesSartreuses metaphors, peakingof an explosionin Being. But we havethe flat oppositionof massiveand inert Being-in-itselfand this kind offree activity. It remindsus of Bergson'svitalistic dualism with matterspatialand consciousnessactive and temporal.


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330 PHILOSOPHY NDPHENOMENOLOGICALESEARCHBut what is the alternative?Well, a criticaltype of realism,such asI -have outlined, would take the physical world to be patternedanddynamic.It would consideratoms,electrons,chemicalcombinationsandorganicevolutionquite seriously.All this would involve the use of sen-sory informationn the contextof questionand experimentalechnique.It wouldbe knowledge-about nd have its own categories.It would notbe condemned o an intuitedplenitude.Whatcouldbe considered he statusof consciousnessn this,approach?Well, my suggestion s that consciousness s of the natureof an alerteduse of sensationsand feelingin guidingthe organism'sadjustmento itssituation.New levels of abilitiesemerge.There is a rehearsalof possi-

bilities and the need for decision.As I have alreadysuggested,externalperceivingis supplementedby introspectionso that we have a doubleknowledgeof the functioningorganism.I can see no basis for a caveatagainst this evolutionaryview. Consciousness s to be connectedwithfunctionalactivities.These are both cognitionaland valuative.There arelevels of causality and human agency representsthe highest level weknow of causality.I do not see that Sartre's chematism akes evolutioninto account.His theoryof knowledgeas an intuitionof appearances, sa massiveplenitude, s hardlyfavorable.Thus far, I havebeen largelycritical.And so I want to stress now myappreciation f his psychology.His emphasison the imaginations excel-lent. We do have a sense of what is lackingin situations, he absenceofa friendin a cafe'.There are frustrationsand conflictsand what Sartrecalls negativities.All this strikes me as quite empirical.Man is in asituationand has to handleit as best he can. He must commithimself.And I do think that his conceptof "badfaith" has point. One seeks toescape responsibility.Again, the self has no predetermined ssence. It is an integrativegrowthexpressiveof projectsand situationsand consideredpossibilities.All this is to the good. The emphasisupon it has been a contributionof existentialism. t stands out in contrastto Hegelianismbut I doubtthat it is so different rom Britishand Americanthoughton the subject.Yet new terminologieshave their advantages.The idea of the absurdbringshome man'sstatusand situation.On the one hand, as Sartresays,it stressesa frankrecognitionof the kindof worldwe are in and, on theotherhand, it drawsthe inevitableconclusion.As a naturalistichumanist,I was not shookedby Sartre'satheism.Onthe other hand,I was somewhatskepticalof his manipulations f Being-in-itselfand Being-for-itself o show that the idea of God is contradic-tory.I, myself,welcomethe debatethat is goingon in theologicalcircles


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EXISTENTIALISM, REALISTIC EMPIRICISM, AND MATERIALISM 331but see no short out. It is an older subject than most Christians ealize.And attempts o prove the existence of a God have not been too-suc-cessful.

ConcludingRemarksMy summaryof conclusionscan be quite brief. I desiderate ess cul-turalseparationn philosophy han is the case. It is not thatphilosophersof different chools do not know, in a generalway, whereothers stand.But it is the case thatintensivestudyin formativeyears gives a bent andperspective o their thought which is not easily overcome. As a result,they do not see alternatives learly.Let me illustrate.I workedwithin the Americanrealisticmovementtryingto avoid both Locke'srepresentativeealismand Kant'scombina-tion of phenomenonand noumenon. The desirableobjectivewas, quiteclearly, some way of unitingdirectcognitive referencewith processesofinformationalmediation. n the long run,I workedout my presentnotionof a from-and-tocircuitwhich unites sensory input with its referentialuse. But, quite understandably,he American new realists had notgrasped his possibilityandhad takenthe positionthata reformof Hume

along presentationalines was the promisingmove. For them,the criticalrealists were all bogged down in Locke's schematism.To make mattersworse,John Dewey transformed he new realisminto a kind of experi-entialismwhich aimed at problem-solving nd reconstruction.While this was going on, a movementin Vienna developed calledlogical positivismwhich sought to combine Hume'ssensationalismwithmodernlogic. It had a good deal of self-confidenceand propoundedtheses about meaningand verification.It took time to work these outand showwhitherthey led. I offer this as another llustrationof the dif-ficultiesconfronting he young philosopher.He is confrontedby a sortof jungle.While all this was happening o analyticempiricism and this is anoversimplication dialecticalmaterialismwas confrontedby the growthof science anddevelopmentsn scientificmethod andmathematicalogic.It was not averseto this growthbut found it hard to fit its dialecticalaxiomsinto the picture.What,precisely,did these mean?On the Continentn the meantime, he existentialistdevelopment ookplace. Its roots are to be found in Kierkegaard'sriticismof Hegel, onthe one hand,and in Nietzsche'sLebensphilosophie.Husserl also playeda part in his stress on logical description. t is to be noted that Anglo-Americaneffortsat a more adequateepistemologywere ratherignored.This is the way philosophy ends to run its course.What I have beenarguing or is increasedcontact,more interaction.First, I tried to offer


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332 PHILOSOPHYNDPHENOMENOLOGICALESEARCHa realisticepistemologywhich would fit into science and a naturalisticontology.In its way, it would undercutKant. It is the externalthingweperceive.Here I had an alternative o Sartre'singenious phenomenalism. tsadvantage ay in the fact that it did not need to postulate two kindsofBeing. Rather its task was to do justice to the emergenceof mind andconsciousnessn the physicalworld.But one of the clues was to be foundin the use of sensory nformation n the guidanceof the organism.Recenttheories of feedback as against one-directional ausality seemed to sup-portthis approach. had long spoken of the brain-mind.The theorywasnot unnatural hat we have both externalknowledge of the brain andinside, participative,knowledge. This way of thinking would lead to adouble-knowledge,dentity, theory and avoid the two kinds of Beingwhich are on Sartre'shands.As I have suggested,mental activityis analerted use of cues and symbolsin integrativeresponse.As I have indicated,I have great respect for Sartre'semphasis uponfreedom.He connects t with a theory of consciousnessas a break in thecausal nexus of Being-in-itself. , on the otherhand, regard t as tied inwith a high level of causality requiring ntegrativeadjustment. rejectcausal predeterminationnd hold that there is a causaljob to do whichmustbe worked out. This is what choice and decisionimply.I hold thatG. E. Moorewas perfectlyrightin stressing he modalphrase:"Hecouldhave done otherwise."This is categoricaland reflects the causal natureof choice.Thus I have much in commonwith Sartre's, xistentialism nd shouldlike to see the differencesdebated.If he shockspeoplewithhis atheism,I supposeI equally shock people with my non-reductive,evolutionarymaterialism.But the issues must be debatedand explored.

ROY WOOD SELLARS.UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN.

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Existentialism, Realistic Empiricism and Materialism