Philosophy Under the Elms

...Iowa mysticism is perhaps on an even lower level than The question of Jewish and Arabian influence on Iowa philosophy...

...and Sheldon of Yale...

...it often happened that the most emithought in comparison seemed laborious and thinly in- nent performers in each ring were on at the same time...

...Two of the most influential among recent schools of thought-pragmatism and neo-realism-claim Amer- Unfortunately, American acceleration and specialiica as their birthplace...

...Our scientific "plant" is coming, in its the most colossal of all wars, has been overcome...

...520 THE COMMONWEAL October 6, 1926 votion to the king, by their desire to spare any further Saint Mary's Church, Philadelphia, where on Noburden to the people of France, and by their sympathy vember 4, 1781, a Mass of thanksgiving has been with the American cause, they unanimously vote to said in the presence of members of the Congress and raise what must at that time have been a colossal sum...

...mediaeval scholasticism is of vital contemporary inSome levity was introduced into the discussion of terest...

...It was the first The elms may be pardoned...

...stat copies of them have recently been acquired by the It is notable that throughout these scenes Catholic Catholic Historical Society...

...In these meetings, M. by experimental psychology that the typical mystic is Noel of Louvain outlined the epistemology of mentally inferior, "less skilful in running difficult scholasticism and neo-scholasticism, identifying the mazes," and, in the professor's elegant language, "a latter with neo-Thomism, and Dr...

...the hisgress itself...

...of Duns Scotus...

...The present writer has been recently quately even in the brief period of time that was maintaining in another magazine the proposition that allotted them...

...In the welcome of Rochambeau to High Street, Philadelphia...

...Their disadvantages...

...This level was simply that of other hand, India, which had not even been invited philosophy in contrast to that of the sciences from to the first two sessions of the congress-the Euro- which too many of the Americans were unable to peans in charge apparently never having heard of emerge, supposing themselves to be dealing with philHindu philosophy-was fortunately represented by osophy when they were really dealing with physics, two of the ablest among all the foreign delegates...

...The weighty reflections of Cohen outlined the relation between ethics and the great philosophers were cut short in order to give place law and showed how and why law inevitably fails to to the laborious lucubrations of some pedagogue from give full satisfaction to ethical demands...

...At any rate, a casual observer of the Sixth tional Congress of 1924 in Naples had proved to be International Congress of Philosophy would have been only a local affair, the sixth was attended by seventy unable to distinguish it from any other contemporary foreign delegates, and every important nation was gathering of noted educators...

...The breaking down of these barriers is the work of the philosoit marked a definite international recognition of pher...

...There can need men who will sit on the border-line of subjects and be little question that we deserve such recognition...

...We are sufferof his eloquent address by declaring that philosophy ing also from excessive specialization...

...The result of the discussion seemed to justify materialism, marked devotion to the idea of philosophy its inclusion in the latter section, as all four of the as an instrument for the attainment of the good life...

...Briand and Stresemann were spoken...

...We welcome those But as long as we worship science and are afraid of scholars in philosophy who speak the German tongue...

...his position would now seem to be supported mysticism in this division through the ill-advised at- by the important place assigned to the subject in the tempt of Professor Edwin D. Starbuck to demonstrate deliberations of the congress...

...Especially in psycholcongress is in the spirit of Locarno...

...It like old photographs or the Ten Commandments- is ten thousand pities that the whole huge bulk of and sometimes so very convenient to forget American citizens, Catholic and non-Catholic, may not The surrender of Yorktown is reported in a brief, have their faith and patriotism stimulated by visual moonlit tableau...

...The work of Duns Scotus," said M. The real impossibility of specialization in separate Gilson, "is inspired by Avicenna in the majority of the departments of philosophy was well illustrated by the decisive points in which it is opposed to that of Saint discussion of values which, although apparently be- Thomas...

...something by this specialization, but we are losing someThis graceful giving to a German phrase the place of thing by it, also, in this land of ours...

...As far as any plea is implicit in what has been ern nations, and now it is learning the language of the said, it is a plea for the casting off of that intellectual Orient...

...This, however, was practically the scholasticism likewise received much discussion...

...We have gained' belongs, not to "les nations," but to "die menschheit...

...Only the best of the sufficient to obviate this difficulty...

...services to the cause of American independence are But to return to the pageant-comedy and pathos, stressed...

...Various Podunk...

...The other delegates, even when ap- the dominating influence of Arabian thought in the proaching philosophy from a too scientific point of period of declining scholasticism, especially in the work view, stood aloof from such obvious futilities...

...But it is quite as notable that they are never too, are mingled in a little scene in a Philadelphia inn overstressed...

...The most original paper in the entire congress was In the history of philosophy, two meetings were deprobably that of Professor Whitehead on Time, in the voted to mediaevalism, one to Plato, and two to redivision of metaphysics, but he was forced, ironically, ports from different members on the contemporary by his narrow time limits, to present it in such com- philosophic weather in their respective countries...

...The democratic principle of equality of the most interesting papers of the congress, M. R. was strictly observed...

...It speaks the lan- and halting continuation of what is thought and said elseguage of the classics...

...survey the whole field of knowledge...

...Where the so-called Fifth Internaas well...

...It is time we honor in his speech voiced the spirit of concord which had a synthesis of what we know...

...On the foreign delegates...

...The situation the note appropriately emphasized in the first meeting in this country was aptly characterized by Dr...

...philosophy, we shall have no great science except a lagging Philosophy speaks no single language...

...We are burning up everything in the world._ in his reply on behalf of the foreign delegates, speak- What for...

...During 522 THE COMMONWEAL October 6, 1926 the four days of the congress no less than a hundred speakers, the most notable of them being F. C. S. delegates found a place upon the program...

...Only one another, agog with excitement, that there were philosopher fulfilled traditional expectations by cross400 philosophers upon the campus' Or did ing the Atlantic to address the congress and then disthey, on the contrary, fail to recognize them, from covering, when he rose to speak, that he had left his their appearance, as philosophers at all...

...Our philosophies have become zation were evident even in this meeting of philosoa part of the thought of the world...

...That under these circumstances the congress papers on essences and subsistents went over virtually accomplished as much of value as it did is matter of the same ground traversed 700 years ago in mediaeval congratulation...

...There is a surging Te Deum of large moneys later donated by the French clergy) -and in a tableau dominated by the American flag, are now in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris...

...The congress was divided into four sections, folly to assert that our position in this field is as yet meeting at the same time: metaphysics...

...words of that memorable pastoral of the Third PlenHe has come, bringing additional funds, and some four ary Council of Baltimore, dated December 7, 1784: thousand troops to add to the pitiful 7,000 which "Back of the events that led to the formation of the are all Washington can claim from the Chesapeake to republic, the Church sees the providence of God leadCanada-and together the two generals are proceed- ing to that issue...

...It speaks the language of all mod- where...

...Then the climax of the whole is we are !-the struggle and its outcome must be judged reached in a crowded scene of half-delirious joy, the by supernatural as well as natural canons...

...knowledge...

...Naturally, Schiller of Oxford, defended the objectivity of values it was found necessary to compensate for this exces- and their inseparable relation to both "facts" and sive generosity in the number of speakers by an equally logical judgments...

...We America's place on the philosophic map...

...It is the philosophic nature, the nature of calm- timidity which hampers the wings of imagination, a plea ness, detachment, seriousness, independence, that the world for a speculative audacity, for more faith in ideas, sloughmost needs to calm the raging billows of competition and ing off a cowardly reliance upon those partial ideas to hatred, and to guide forward in accordance with the great which we are wont to give the name of facts...

...Modern thinkers have successful attempt since the war to bring together perhaps taken to heart Seneca's wise remark that philosophers from the leading nations of the world philosophers have such strange ideas that it is super- and to reknit the broken strands of international philofluous for them to affect strange manners and attire sophic thinking...

...But starved soldiers constantly deserting from the discour- the fundamental fact is brought out that to Catholics aged little army, and as constantly returning to its -incorrigible and, in the main, practical idealists that desperate hope...

...We believe that our country's heroes ing to the decisive battlefields of the South...

...Dewey: by President Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia There is energy and activity among us enough and to University, in his address of welcome spare...

...psychology, and sociology...

...pathos in the episode of the ragged, half- lan, Fitzimmons and "Mad Anthony" Wayne...

...there was no distant echo of Columbia, Charles Bennett and W. H. Sheldon of of Confucius or Lao-tse in the modern halls of Har- Yale-moved on the level which was common to the vard, and the halls were the poorer thereby...

...In order that posterity will be bankrupt ing in French, brought down the house at the climax or in order that it may be made better...

...and beRecords of this meeting, together with a receipt for fore the little, tapered altar, Pere Seraphin Bandol, this "don gratuit" (a loan it was never understood to Franciscan chaplain to the French embassy, is preachbe, and it seems to have been but the first instalment ing his historic sermon...

...The importance of this conclusion for the longing to the third division dealing with the theory history of philosophy is obvious...

...As a whole, the American delegates were tory of philosophy...

...S. Radhakrishnan and S. N. In the absence of the arch-heretic, attacks upon his Dasgupta of the University of Calcutta were able, in heresy were too easily successful...

...In one twenty minutes...

...We need to break ruled, not only the first, but all the subsequent meet- down the barriers which divide the different fields of ings of the congress...

...Not an inconsiderable part of the vigor that once "This congress indicates that the terrible breach made went into industrial accomplishment now finds its way in the life of the world, in the thought of the world, by into science...

...This gentleman from Iowa divided one pounded "the two-level theory of finite and infinite" of his university classes into mystics and non-mystics whereby, as he claimed, neo-scholasticism is able to by using a rough-and-ready criterion of "a sense of absorb the contributions of both idealism and critical God as near or far" ; then, having thus obtained his realism and at the same time avoid their difficulties...

...The Sixth Congress was truly international in its ma- In this, of course, members of the congress merely terial...

...they did not Certain combined meetings of all the sections were inthink as to the manner born...

...It requires a view larger than the technical...

...It is in the spirit ogy and the social sciences an amount of effort is being of Geneva, where not long ago those moving orations of put forth which is hardly equaled in the rest of the world...

...if there was furtive nod- Otherwise, philosophers and papers appeared upon ding or winking among the elms, it was quite imper- the dot with almost disheartening regularity...

...PHILOSOPHY UNDER THE ELMS By ERNEST SUTHERLAND BATES D ID the Harvard elms recently whisper to one Socratic noses or Schopenhauerian locks...

...The exception, probably unavoidable in October 6, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 521 the present distressed condition of that country, was sity, William A. Hocking of Harvard, John Dewey none the less regrettable...

...Paul Lapie, rector of the University of Paris, know why we are doing it...

...We are living faster than ever before, but we don't Dr...

...It was impossible, from the necessities during the September of 178 : comedy in the tepid of chronology or concentration, to include even such brew prepared for his Tory visitors by the loyal inn- familiar and famous figures as Lafayette, Barry, Moykeeper...

...Photo- the pageant closes...

...casion of very considerable importance...

...ideals of international friendship and peace...

...they seemed to remain oblivious of the But though uncolorful, the Sixth Congress was an ocdoughty little mortals scurrying about their feet...

...The pact form that it is doubtful if many were able to Platonic meeting was a failure owing to the necessary follow its highly technical and subtle reasoning...

...logic, episcomparable to that of England, France, Germany, or temology, and the philosophy of science...

...discussions of nominalism and realism...

...The contrary was amply evidenced by the con- ory of value, social philosophy, and aesthetics...

...The genius of America is, acceleration...

...contributive and constructive work in raising the dry But truisms are troublesome, disconcerting things- bones of these Revolutionary episodes to life again...

...tellectual instead of something lived...

...That were the instruments of the God of nations in estabFrench assistance during those fateful years saved the lishing this home of freedom...

...Other absence, through illness, of John Burnet of Edinburgh important contributions to this section which suffered who had been expected to present and defend his in a similar way, though to a less extent, were those heterodox thesis that Plato was a kind of Boswell who of Herman Weyl of Zurich, Hans Driesch of Leip- merely recorded through all of his works, except the zig, J. A. Smith of Oxford, and Professors Bennett Laws, the actual opinions and expressions of Socrates...

...A more serious Americans-James H. Ryan of the Catholic Univer- defect was the undue number of papers read...

...A valiant attempt was made in excessive parsimony in the length of the speeches...

...This was revealed a general American attitude...

...This way, to rival our industrial plants...

...ethics, theItaly...

...was more probably the case...

...No another meeting by Ivy G. Campbell of Wells to deone, great or small, was usually allowed more than fine an objective standard of aesthetic values...

...Then comes the final scene in old contact with them during this year 1926...

...It was an eminently represented on the program with the single exception sedate and respectable assembly, disinclined to flaunt of China...

...James H. Ryan exdumb-bell...

...Now a specialist in one department hardly Another important feature of the congress was that dares look into another specialist's department...

...Yet it would be phers...

...some marvelous way-a better testimony to Hindu The two meetings concerned with mediaevalism, on magic than all the fakirs-to define and defend the the other hand, were among the most profitable in the fundamental positions of Indian philosophy fairly ade- whole congress...

...John A. Ryan also sponsored the scholastic proving absolutely nothing, or at most suggesting that position...

...it was also international in spirit...

...officers of the French and American armies...

...This four-ringed circus had its distinctly inferior to those from other countries...

...of value, actually occurred in the second, supposed to In general, the congress was characterized by be devoted to logic, epistemology, and philosophy of marked antagonism to every form of mechanism and science...

...ceptible...

...The latter carefully prepared paper in the bottom of his trunk...

...mystics, he put them through a series of psychological Bishop William Turner, Monsignor Edward A. Pace, tests and ended with a mass of elaborate statistics and Dr...

...A new day President Lowell of Harvard was equally critical has come for philosophy, not as something apart from life, but as something that is guiding life to the fulfill- of the American scene ment of its purposes...

...American cause precisely as the Americans saved the The Catholic Historical Society has done a rarely Allied cause in I9I8, has become but a truism now...

...Here only attempt in the entire congress to employ the the most important paper was that of M. Etienne Gilmethod of "exact science" in a field where it is utterly son, of the Sorbonne, in which he proved conclusively inapplicable...