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Evolutionary Naturalism

Archie J. Bahm

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 15, No. 1. (Sep., 1954), pp. 1-12.

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PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Quarterly Journal

VOLUME

XV

NO.

SEPTEMBER954

EVOLUTIONARY NATURALISM

I

cannot begin this critical essay without first expressing considerable

honest appreciation for a man who has left a permanent mark upon the

history of philosophies of evolution. Personally,

I

selected the University

of Michigan for graduate work so I could study with Professor Roy Wood

Sellars, and there

I

associated with him, as student, assistant, and teaching

fellow, for more than five years (February,

1929

to June, 1943 , always

considering him my major professor. Like him, I have, since that time,

considered myself a naturalist, an evolutionist, a humanist, and, with

modifications, a critical realist. Some of the peculiarities of his method of

introducing students to philosophy through a

problem-types approach are

reflected in my own new text.l Even some of his weaknesses (stress upon

modern to the relative neglect of ancient, mediaeval, and oriental philoso-

phies) remain with me. Thus, despite growing disagreement, my debt to

Sellars is deep and ineradicable. His influence upon others, through his

dozen books, multitude of articles, and long years of teaching, has been

profound, whether they have agreed with him or not.

Before criticizing,

I

shall try to bring together those doctrines which

constitute, or are intimately related to, Sellars' view about what may be

"called, indifferently, evolutionary naturalism, emergent evolution,

or

emergent materiali~rn."~ ha t Sellars is a naturalist, none will question.

But in how far he is an evolutionist may well be reexamined.

I t is not easy to organize Sellars' views on evolution because, t o my

knowledge, he has never done so. Rereading, after twenty years, his Evo-

lutionary Naturalism3 and the relevant parts of his Principles and Problems

of

Phil~sophy,~ Bougle's Evolution of

he Philosophy of Physical R e ~ l i s m , ~

value^ ^

The Essentials of Logic,I and Religion Coming of Age, I am im-

pressed by the fact that , despite frequent use of the term evolution, he

has said very little directly about the subject. He never wrote about evo-

Philosophy An Introduction. John Wiley and Sons, Inc.,

N.

Y., 1953. Hereafter

symbolized by PI.

Religion Coming of Age p. 141. The Macmillan Co., N. Y., 1928. Hereafter sym-

bolized by RCA.

Open Court Publishing Co., Chicago, 1922. Hereafter symbolized by EN.

The Macmillan Co.,

N.

Y., 1926. Hereafter symbolized by PPP.

The Macmillan Co., N. Y., 1932. Hereafter symbolized by PPR.

Henry Holt and Co.,

N.

Y., 1926. Hereafter symbolized by BEV.

Houghton Mifflin Co., Bpston,

1917

Revised,

1925.

Hereafter symbolized by EL.


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lution, for his Evolutionary Naturalism is a treatment of metaphysical

categories from a point of view of critical and physical realism rather than

an examination of the nature of evolution itself. One looks in vain any-

where in his books for a chapter on evolution. The most sustained attempt

to deal directly with the problem appears in The Principles and Problems

of Philosophy, Ch. 24, and extends for approximately three paragraphs.

Handicapped by an inability to organize and express his ideas clearly and

succinctly, he spent more time talking about what he was going to say,

or had said, than in saying it. The evolutionary naturalism which the

keen eye can discern is like a statue hidden in the marble (EN, p. 19).

Although he carved steadily for many years to reveal his vision, the result

must still be glimpsed in scattered chippings rather than in rounded form.

In what follows, I shall attempt something which, so far as I know, he

never undertook to do, namely, to assemble in one place most of what he

had to say about evolutionism.

In championing a naturalistic realism, Sellars took up the challenge of

defending it against the attacks of idealism, spiritualism, and romanticism

in all its forms. I n doing so, he first had to admit' certain inadequacies of

past naturalisms, which sought to oversimplify by reduction (EN, p.

13), ignored novelty and evolutionary synthesis (EN, p. 17), and failed

to take mind seriously (EN, p. 16). Darwinism was a step in the right

direction but it remained

in

thrall to the old physics (RCA, p. 219).

Although pragmatism was essentially veracious and sane, (EN, p. 312)

it s positivistic and phenomenalistic leanings and its misunderstanding of

critical realism led it in a wrong direction. Likewise, Dewey's abandon-

ment of the category of substance left him, like Russell and Whitehead,

helpless in trying to account for change and evolution. So, except for oc-

casional appreciation of sympathies with C. L Morgan, S. Alexander, and

J. C. Smuts, Sellars' spirit was pervaded by a feeling of bearing most of

the burden alone.

Being a physicalist or materialist, Sellars interpreted evolution in terms

of such physical categories as substance, change, novelty, organization,

structure, function, properties, causality, and levels.

1. He is a defender of substance as against eventism (PPR, p. 8).

Change presupposes an endurant which can change (PPR, p. 303).

Substantial existence is necessarily absolute and coexistent while it

exists. Of course, we must distinguish between primary endurance and

secondary endurance (PPR, p. 314). Although he did not specify the

nature of primary substance, except to call i t material or physical-he

left this for scientists to settle-he did assume a primary substance which

is simple, that is, which does not seem to be further decomposable

(PPR, p. 298).

If electrons are eternal, (PPR, p. 314) they are simple,

indecomposable, but not inert, for he rejects any notion of support by


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an inner changeless kernel or any assumption of inertness (PPR, p. 297).

The endurance of complex, or secondary, continuants depends upon a

primary endurance of being. Were it not for this primary endurance a

complex might vanish like a bubble because its elements had ceased to be.

I

conclude that change is never the vanishing of primary being but only

an alteration of pattern. Such a view of the secondariness of change has

always been one of the meanings of substance (PPR, p. 304).

2. There is no contradiction in a thing which changes and yet is the

same thing. How are events related to things? Events seem to be changes

in things, and the relation is an intrinsic one.

It

refers to some alteration

in constitution and properties of the thing so that it is different from what

it was (PPP, p. 244). A thing may change in this respect or that , the

limit to be avoided being that of breakdown or dissolution (PPR, p. 302).

Yet complex secondary continuants are perishable (PPR, p. 314).

Change is a principle which is intended to include change in the stars,

change in the elements, change in the conditions on this earth, change in

chemical combinations, change in organisms, change in human life, change

in society. The principle of evolution means, in the first place, the reality

of basic alterations all through the universe. It stands for the acceptance

of process in the place of fixed and static things (PPP, p. 271).

3. But also the principle of evolution stood for more than the reality

of change.

It

stressed what may be called cumulative change. (Ibid.)

The new arises from the old by cumulative change (RCA,

p.

176).

Evolution implies novelty

EN, p. 161). In addition to novelty for each

particular thing, and to novel things, there are novel levels of things. Yet

novelty is not enough.

4. There is another principle the principle of organization, (PPP,

p. 274) which involves the fact of synthesis (EN, p. 16).

It

is the or-

ganization which is novel and organization is objectively significant

EN, pp. 332-333). Organization is not an accident but appears to be

intrinsic and native t o physical systems'' (PPP, p. 276). Although changes

are clearly the resultant of components'' (EN, p. 16), nature seems able

to form systems which have a measure of internal unity which are not mere

collocations of self-sufficient units (PPP, p. 288). The constant oc-

currence of creative synthesis'' (PPP, p. 283)) gives rise to novel wholes

through integrative ca~sali ty . ~ hat holds the whole together?

Nothing extraneous is needed. The whole

is

the parts in their spatio-

temporal relations. (Ibid.) While the process of synthesis is both spatial

and temporal, organization would seem to be more dominantly spatial

(PPR, p. 302.).

5.

What is new at novel levels? Things (substances), properties, struc-

In

Virgilius Ferm,

History of Phi losophical Systems

p.

425

Philosophical

L ib ra ry , N. Y., 1950.


5/13

tures, functions, capacities, cnusality, centers of dominance, individuality,

behavior, laws, categories. A thing has no existence apart from its prop-

erties and its properties no existence apart from a thing. In other words,

a thing and it s nature are inseparable (PPR, p. 161). These new kinds

of things have properties of their own expressive of their organization and

these new properties are said to emerge.

whole acts differently from its

parts and the laws of the parts are not descriptive laws of the whole

(RCA, p. 142). Each level has its own laws and categories (PPP, p.

372). These levels involve new capacities (RCA, p. 177), new levels of

causality (PPP, p. 383), and new centers of dominance (Fern, loc.

cit.). Function and structure go together at every level (EN, p. 334).

Complex individuality and organization seem inseparable (PPR, p.

302).

6. How are the different levels related? Hierarchically. The higher order

implies and includes the lower order (EN, p. 261). This rise to higher

levels must rest upon and but carry out the potentialities of the lower

levels (EN, p. 335). But there is novelty of an undeniable sort at every

level of reality (EN, p. 319). Evolution means that the higher is

an outgrowth of the lower, that A and B integrated are more than A and

B separate (EN, p. 329). A system is more than an external sum of parts;

it is an organization in which the whole exerts a control over the parts

(EN, p. 302). What each part does is for the sake of the whole, and yet

there is no purpose in it

EN,

p. 335). The general plan of nature

we likened to a pyramid of tier-like construction. Each new level

depended upon the energies and conditions of the lower level and was

adjusted to its wide-spreading foundation. Matter, itself, was evolved.

Then came the earth life mind and society (PPP, p. 363).

For each level laws must be discovered rather than deduced (PPP, p.

364). The laws of nature form a hierarchy in which the different levels

are discontinuous but such discontinuity does not a t all conflict with

the genetic continuity (ibid.) which permits both identity and differ-

ence (EN, p. 332). So what is true of the higher levels is in its measure

true of the lower levels (EN, p. 333). The relations in nature are not

[merely] external, but they are additional and changeable (EN, p 282).

This makes the distinction between levels one of degree (EN, p. 334).

And there are degrees of freedom in nature and the higher up we go in

the scale of evolution the more freedom there is because the greater is the

internal organization and plasticity of realities (PPP, p. 372). But the

higher, being freer than, is not freed from the lower. The old persists

while the new develops with effort within it (PPP, p. 364).

7. What are the levels? Are the differences

between them analogous or

are some levels substantial and others merely adjectival? Sellars deals


6/13

specScally and repeatedly with matter, life, mind, and society as levels.

He also thinks of levels within these levels, e.g., of atoms (PPP, p. 274)

and molecules (PPP, p. 275) as levels of matter, of cells (PPP, p. 278)

and bodies (PPP, p. 290) as levels of life, of ideas and systems of ideas as

levels of mental activity (PPP, p. 339), and of families, communities,

states and nations as levels of society (PPP, p. 361), without bothering to

develop distinctions between these sublevels in any detail. When we ex-

amine and compare the relations of life to matter, mind to life, and society

to mind, we find some similarities but also some very significant differences.

Although, on the one hand, the distinction between the living and the

non-living is one of degree, (EN, p. 334) on the other, a living body is

literally a new kind of reality (PPP, p. 291) with ('relative autonomy or

spontaneity (RCA, p. 226). A society, too, is a new kind of thing

(PPP, pp. 351, 354), but also, clearly, a society is not a physical thing,

but a peculiar grouping of physical things (PPP, p. 350). However, al-

though life rises to mind, and the reality of mind and consciousness pre-

sents us with still another apparent gap, or break, in nature (PPP,

p.

291), mind is not so much a thing as a process (PPP, p. 350). Con-

sciousness is not a substance but is a complex and changing event

adjectival in some sense to the organism (PPR, p. 414). The psychical

is literally in the brain as a quality (PPR, p. 411), and is as extended

as the brain-event to which it is intrinsic (PPR, p. 414). The brain must

be as rich and unified as mind and consciousness (EN, p. 336). Thus some

levels are substantially different whereas others are adjectivally different.

But all are levels of organization in the physical world (PPR, p.

436),

since the physical is but another term for being, for existence (PPR,

pp. 6 285). Values, too, exist, and thus are physical, and have evolved

adjectivally to human tendencies and desires (BEV, p. xxv).

Turning to criticisms of Sellars as an evolutionist,

I

must face the possi-

bility that my evaluations may be directed against what is my own mis-

understanding of Sellars. Whether or not these criticisms are warranted

will depend partly upon how much of an evolutionist he actually claims to

be and partly upon how much of an evolutionist others have taken him

to be. Since he has openly and repeatedly claimed to be an evolutionist,

and is commonly so interpreted, and since I

have asserted that he has left

a permanent mark upon the history of philosophies of evolution, my major

criticism, that he is not a thorough-going evolutionist, will require some

substantiation. His own statements will be used to demonstrate that the

sense in which he may properly be called an evolutionist must be consider-

ably refined. He will have an opportunity to pass upon such refinement.

1. First of all, Sellars was, from beginning to end, a materialist. He

was a materialist who

took time and evolution seriously and as such


7/13

was advocating a new materialism (P PR , p. 3 ; Fer m , op. cit. p.

418)

or a new physicalism (P PR , p. 4). His conception of his task was to

show that materialism could account for evolution. But he did not even

wish to claim th at m atte r or th e physical was a produ ct of evolution from

some non -m aterial or pre-physical source-as a thorough-going evolutionis t

would tr y t o do. His interest is in ma tter which evolves, no t in evolution

which m aterializes.

2. Furthermore, since to exist is to be physical, there can, for Sellars,

be no evolution beyond t h e physical. Altho ugh new levels of life and mind

and society evolve, they do no t progress beyond the physical. They remain

physical as long as they exist. The evolutionary naturalist does not do ub t

th a t there a re levels of inte gratio n in na tur e, bu t levels of reality is qu ite

another, and very questionable, category

(EN,

p. 204). Does not Sellars

hereby remain reductionistic regarding levels of reality? H e appe ars to

pa rt com pany a t this poin t with some of his fellow eme rgentists who assert

th at life and m ind, a t least, are genuinely new substances which, although

continuing to depend upon the physical, have evolved beyond the phy sical.

Th ey a re above the physical rath er th an being merely new levels of or-

ganization within the physical. Although, to some, this difference may

seem verbal, I believe that Sellars intends it to be real. If so, then he is

no t a s fully evo lutionary as som e of his em ergentistic colleagues.

3. Th e universe as a functional whole (P PR , p. 314) does no t evolve.

I

do no t apply th e concept of evolution to th e universe tak en as a super-

en tity inclusive of and containing all others, b u t only to physical systems

within i t (PP R, p. 3) .

4.

I have found in his writing s no concep tion of downw ard evo lution.

By this

I

do not mean devolution, which he recognizes (P P R , p. 433),

b u t the emergen ce of novelties inside of large r wholes, which nove lties

derive their origin primarily from the wholes within which they function.

While there is nothing in his view to prevent him from accepting such

downward evolution within the emergent levels which he recognizes, he

is prevented from conceiving evolution as extending, or evolving, down-

ward from the inanimate to the extent that he presupposes a need for

some simple primary substances (P PR , p. 29 7). A more thorough evolu-

tionist would claim that no substance can be so ultimately simple that

fur the r evolution can not tak e place within it. For exam ple, if a supposedly

simple substance is related to several othe r substances, simple or complex,

and if i ts relations to these o ther substances are pa rts of it , then it has

these par ts and , having parts, is not simple. Th us, there can be no abso-

lutely smallest par t (P I, p.

238 . Suc h a view presupposes a doctrine of

organic relations (P I, p. 239) which, though never explicitly st at ed , is

implicit in pa rts of Sellars' think ing. H e asserts th a t relations n nature


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are not external'' (EN, p. 282), but rejects the theory of relations so

internal that they destroy the reality of the terms (EN, p. 204). He

accepts both internal and external relations (EN, p. 207) but has not

gone so far as to say that every relation has both external and internal

aspects (PI, p. 239).

I

suggest that, in so far as relations between sup-

posedly simple substances are internal to, and thus parts of, those sub-

stances, and in so far as any change in those relations produces a change

in each substance, it follows that there is some change also in the inter-

relations of the parts of, or within, each substance. Such inner parts, too,

are not simple, for each part is related to the other parts within the sub-

stance and so has i ts own parts. Since, in principle, there can be no lowest

level of parts, there is no need to place a lower limit to downward evolu-

tion.

5. Even between supposed upper and lower limits of evolution, Sellars

is not thoroughly evolutionary.

a. Cumulative evolution seems to be very local and exceptional

(PPR, p. 433). Sellars, the evolutionist, considers evolution very excep-

tional.

b. His conception of substance, although evolutionary, was only par-

tially so. In contrast to Dewey and Whitehead, who mistakenly abandoned

the concept of substance, Sellars successfully redefined substance so as to

take account of change. Bu t he did not go far enough. Substance is that

which endures, continues, or remains the same, through change. The

category of substance

stands for continuants which may change

(PPR, p. 274). There is nothing in endurance opposed to change. In

fact, change presupposes an endurant which can change (PPR, p. 303).

And eventness does not preclude endurance, but, rather, presupposes it

(PPR, p. 305). Thus substance is dynamic. Every substance does some-

thing. Substance functions. Now although Sellars holds that structure

and function are intimately connected (EN, p. 143), and that substance

and function go together at every level (EN, p. 334),

I

have not found

him saying, further, that substance and function are related in such

a

way

that substance is as much dependent upon function as function is upon

substance. In fact, such a view of the secondariness of change has always

been one of the meanings of substance (PPR, p. 304). In a more dynamic,

and more evolutionary, view, change would not be secondary to, but at

least equal with, permanence. As

I

see it , substance can be defined as that

which functions, i.e., derives its nature as substance from its functioning.

Substance is just as dependent upon function as function is upon substance.

Sellars, in effect, admits such a conception in an example of a tree which,

when it decays, i.e., stops function as a tree, ceases to be a substance, i.e.,

is a tree no longer (EN, p. 153). Yet this is not typical of his general


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outlook. He stops short of making substance and function universally

interdependent. This affects his interpretation of mind, consciousness, and

society as substances. If a mind or a society continues through change, is

i t not thereby functioning substantially and so properly called a substance?

His treatment of some levels of evolution, e.g., life, as substantial

and others, e.g., consciousness and values, as adjectival, seems unbalanced.

Now i t is true th at a t some times permanence and a t other times change

seems more significant. And we may be warranted in naming one thing as

changing and another as permanent, in order to indicate their dominant

aspects. But since some societies outlast individual members, and some

standards of value persist for centuries while the valuers influenced by

these standards come and go, such societies and such standards are, in

this sense,

I

claim, more substantial, because they function more sub-

stantially, than such individuals. Sellars finds his primary endurants at

the bottom of his scale of levels. Although one need not go as far as Plotinus,

or even J. E. B ~ o d i n , ~n locating primary endurance at the top of the

scale of being, the fact that higher-level endurants are often more sub-

stantial than those which are lower has been considerably neglected in

Sellars' view. Sellars would have been more of an evolutionist if he had

accepted a two-way direction of development, combined with a more

functional conception of substance.

c. Not only are there two ways or directions, up and down, but there

are other dimensions which cut across the levels of matter, life, mind, and

society. Every term, every thing, every event in fact, is the intersection

of innumerable dimensions that spring from numberless orienting dimen-

sions and criss-cross the universe. 1 Not only should we recognize the

possibility of change in all possible dimensions (ibid.), but the actuality

of evolution, if we conceive time-spans long enough, in all actual dimen-

sions. Multidimensional evolution has been neglected by Sellars.

d. Since existence may be discovered to develop dialectically, and since,

for Sellars, dialectic is a despised term signifying something unreal (EN,

p. 149) or associated with absolute idealism, we may expect to find, as

we do, dialectical types of evolution entirely missing from Sellars' writings.

I am not referring here so much to the dialectical sweeps of Hegel, Marx,

or Mueller,ll as to simple dialectical aspects of the nature of each existent

and of each level or dimension of existence. For example, it seems to me

that when a change continues, either by continuing to change or by con-

See J.

E.

Boodin, Three Interpretations of the U niverse Ch. 11. The Macmillan

Co., N. Y. 1934.

o

Charles M. Perry, Towards a Dimensional Real i sm p. 134. University of

kla

homa Press, Norman, 1939.

See Gustav E. Mueller, Dialectic. Bookman Associates, N . Y . 1953.


10/13

tinuing changed, its continuing is a kind of remaining, i.e., is a kind of

substance. The more a change continues, in either of these ways, the more

substantial it is. For (a) a changed condition, as long as it remains, is

substantial, and (b) a constant change, in so far

s it is constant, is like-

wise substantial. Seen dialectically, then, not only does the difference

between permanence and change seem less great than in non-dialectical

viewpoints, but also the number and kinds of bases for new directions,

levels, and dimensions of evolution increase.

Another, perhaps incidental, dialectical criticism may be noted in the

fact that, although Sellars is willing to say that philosophical theories have

evolved historically, we do not get the feeling tha t i t is any part of his

ideal that they should evolve very much beyond his own views.

I

suspect

that he would be unwilling to say that philosophy ought to continue to

evolve so far as to evolve beyond evolutionary theories. In desiring to state

evolutionism in final form, does one seek to put an end to all further evolu-

tion of evolutionism?

e. Sellars did not apply evolutionary concepts in the reconstruction of

other philosophical concepts with as much interest, vigor, or thoroughness

as did certain pragmatists. Dewey, for example, reconstructed traditional

notions of knowledge, truth, logic, and God in ways which Sellars never

attempted.

Although theory of knowledge is Sellars' primary forte (one is tempted to

predict that history will remember him longer as a critical realist than as

an evolutionist), his preoccupation with critical realism turns out to be a

weakness so far as extending evolution is concerned. That ideas are

historical products and that they have instrumental worth, the critical

realist would proclaim as fervently as does the pragmatist (EN, p. 55).

But that each idea is itself a dynamic process, adapting to and evolving

through changing contexts, competing with other ideas for acceptance,

being made

true by future verification, and supported by a will to believe,

is something Sellars hesitates to go along with. Since he habitually as-

sociates pragmatism with positivism and condemns James' voluntarism

as romanticistic, he is unwillingly forced to part company with the prag-

matists (EN, p. 56) because they never conquered the epistemological

problem (EN, p. 77). I t now seems to me that Sellars never fully ap-

preciated pragmatism. He was willing to accommodate pragmatism within

the framework of his critical realism, as he did evolutionism within the

framework of his materialism. But that pragmatism could encompass

critical realism within its range of workable epistemologies, and that

evolutionism could embody the virtues of materialism in its levels and

dimensions of development, better than the reverse, Sellars could not ap-

prove. His irrevocable commitment to his own somewhat limited epistemo-


11/13

10 AND RESEARCHHILOSOPI-IY PHENOMENOLOGICAL

logical premises prevented him from sharing in broad and flexible sympa-

thies with many varieties of pragmatic developments in epistemology.

Doubtless Dewey has over-stressed the evolutionary nature of knowledge;

but the hities in Sellars' epistemological conceptions could stand some

evolutionary loosening.

Although, for Sellars, truth is something that grows and increases in

volume and significance (EN, p. 55), ,one gets the feeling from his writings

that the ideal possibilities for growth and increase involve h e d limits and

truth itself has a fixed nature. That the truths men believe have evolved,

Sellars will assert, but tha t the very nature of truth itself undergoes evolu-

tionary change, Sellars doubtless denies.

Although he has spoken of the logic of evolution, he has made no at-

tempt a t reconstruction. The whole logic of evolution lies in its assertion

that structures are growths (RCA, p. 219).

I

have never seen the

logic of evolution worked out along these lines. It is the idea under-

lying my Evolutionary Naturalism and Alexander's and Lloyd Morgan's

theory of emergent evolution (PPR, p. 401). In his

ssentials

of

Logic

he gives logic an evolutionary setting. Very much like Dewey, whom he

has been reading, he even describes thought as an activity which occurs

within the individual's experience. I t arises in response to some problem

or difficulty and aims at i ts solution or disappearance. It seems to involve

controlled association and invention and to demand something of the

nature of testing and verification (EL, p. 15). Yet all of the traditional

formulas are kept intact. Although in his evolutionary moments Sellars

claims that mental operations combine and create (EN, p. 336 , in his

more traditional moods he asserts that logic does not create new capacities

in the mind of the individual but it may train and sharpen the capacities

already there (EL, p. 5). I have always favored the Aristotelian tradition

in logic because it seemed to me to follow more closely the real employment

of the intellect in knowing an external world and less the implicative,

hypothetical technique of deduction. Its categories, of course, need re-

vision in the light of an adequate epistemology (PPR, p. 228). But

this revision is something which Sellars never undertook. In contrast to

both Dewey and Whitehead, who recognized an interdependence between

logic, metaphysics, and epistemology such that one cannot revise one

without also remaking the others, Sellars, it appears, first revised his episte-

mology and then simply accommodated his metaphysics, logic, ethics, and

social philosophy to his epistemological foundations. Dewey's reconstructed

logic was an aid in reconstructing other categories. Whitehead's logic,

although a brilliant development in mathematical methods, turned out to

be a failure so far as evolutionary metaphysics is concerned.12 One cannot

2 See H. K Wells,

Process and Un rea l i t y

King s Crown Press, N Y., 1950.


12/13

fully reconstruct a dynamic metaphysics with a static logic. Sellars7 claim

to fame as an evolutionist is restricted by his failure to develop an evolu-

tionary logic.

God, in the minds of evolutionists, also evolves. For Morgan, God

evolves through all the levels of reality. For Alexander, God is at least an

emergent and demergeable level of existence. For Dewey, God constantly

evolves through interactive adaptation. Although Whitehead's conse-

quent nature of God7' evolves, his primordial nature remains unre-

constructed in evolutionary directions. Sellars, again more typically a

materialist than an evolutionist, simply discards God altogether as a meta-

physical principle.

Having ended my criticisms, may well pause to wonder whether they

have been misdirected. In referring to such ideas as creative synthesis,

critical points, creative evolution, creative intelligence, organismalism,

Sellars says: My hope is that I can assist in the crystallization of these

ideas around a realistic, instead of a romantic, Weltanschauung (EN,

p. 322 . This he has done. I find no similarly expressed hope that he would

achieve anything like a complete evolutionism. He merely wanted ma-

terialists to take evolution seriously. I hope that he will make use of

his opportunity to comment upon these articles to state more precisely in

how far he considers himself an evolutionist.

In another way my criticisms may have been misdirected, since they are

made from a vantage point in 1954 of a task which was conceived and

undertaken three or four decades earlier.

It

took considerable courage to

champion evolution in metaphysics in a day when even biological evolu-

tion was popularly frowned upon. Now that evolutionary doctrines are

commonplace, facile criticisms made without regard to earlier conditions

may well be unfair.

I am happy to find already stated by Sellars a view which dawned upon

me but recently as a result of a systematic attempt to define my own view-

point, namely, that thinkers are apt to be right in what they affirm and

wrong in what they deny

(EN,

p.

194 .

A thesis of this article has been

that Sellars is right in affirming evolution of substance and wrong in

denying further extensions of its evolution.

4 n incidental concluding note about the relation of organicism, the

name for my own view, to Sellars' language may not be out of place. Al-

though I arrived a t i t through a somewhat devious personal struggle from

such terms as organic unity 13 and organic freedom, l4 I now note with

l

See DeWit t

13

Pa rk er , The Pri nc ipl es of Aesthetics,

pp.

80ff Silver , Burdet t

and Co. , Boston, 1920.

l

See C .

H.

Cooley a nd oth ers, Introductory Sociology,

pp.

70

73ff.

Char les Scr ib-

ners Sons, N. Y., 1933.


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bahm, archie - evolutionary naturalism - 1954.pdf

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