david l. miller - gh mead's conception of present.pdf

The University of Chicago Press and Philosophy of Science Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Philosophy of Science.

http://www.jstor.org

G. H. Mead's Conception of "Present" Author(s): David L. Miller Source: Philosophy of Science, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Jan., 1943), pp. 40-46Published by: on behalf of the The University of Chicago Press Philosophy of Science

AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/184881Accessed: 09-03-2015 10:59 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Mon, 09 Mar 2015 10:59:09 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

G. H. MEAD'S CONCEPTION OF "PRESENT"'

DAVID L. MILLER

In his epistemological system Mead begins with that which the chief philosophers rejected, the novel or exceptional, and makes it central. It is central in a respect which should be carefully explained. The novel or emergent is that with reference to which a present is defined, and a present is the seat of reality. In saying this Mead does not mean that "the past" (more precisely, "a past" and "a future") and "the future" are meaningless terms. Nor does he reduce them to a present. Rather he holds that neither the past (of the realist or the materialist) nor the future (of the finalist) exists. In fact, they are meaningful only in relation to a present and the various pasts and futures referred to in our statement of causal conditions and predictions belong to a present, which is their seat. Mead escapes the metaphysical problem as to whether the past or the future has some sort of being even now. Certainly in so far as he has a metaphysics at all it derives from his epistemology which is primary and represents a pioneering attempt to develop a theory of knowledge answering to experimental science. Consciously or unconsciously most contemporary scientists are still under the influence of bygone epistemological and metaphysical doctrines in their explicit statements of what constitutes reality and knowing.2 Yet in so far as they are successful in practice obviously they

1 This article refers to Mead's conception of "present" as developed in The Philosophy of the Present. Mr. McGilvary probably has the most respectable review of this book yet offered, but he seems to criticize Mead's view by assuming that the realistic interpretation of the past, present, and future is correct. Of course, this begs the point in question. He writes:

"He (Mead) denies the ability to recall his boyhood days as they occurred, and yet in the same breath admits that there were such days .... Like Dewey he gives up the quest for certainty, and then denies that we can refer to the past as it occurred because he is certain that we cannot be certain of such a past." (Int. Jour. of Ethics, Vol. 43, p. 345.)

First of all Mead was trying to show how "past," "present," and "future" can be significantly conceived as being interrelated. He takes his cue from science. Hence in a real sense Mead defined these terms with the ordinary assumption that definitions are arbitrary and are more or less adequate as experience will determine. We can be certain about definitions. They are "true" whatever happens. Hence we can be certain that we can not relive the past per se in the present.

In order to refute Mead's argument, or in order to advise significantly against the va- lidity of his conceptions, one must show either that his arguments are internally inconsistent or that his cue from science is not well taken. Mr. McGilvary shows neither.

2 There are two fundamental assumptions common to most philosophers and scientists from the time of the ancient Greeks even to the present; namely, (1) metaphysical, (a) the real is fixed or immutable; i.e., impervious to time. It does not exist but has being; (b) the effect is in and like the cause. This dogma is supported often by the phrase: we cannot get something from nothing-e nihilo nihil fit. (2) epistemological, (a) when one knows one knows the real, and its corallary, (b) we can know that which exists only in so far as we can see in it the eternal forms. Hence a present, according to tradition, is real and can

40


G. H. MEAD'S CONCEPTION OF ccPRESENT"

are free from the blind alleys and dead ends which these older theories lead to logically. However no one, not even the philosopher, has been able to formulate a consistent set of epistemological principles from which experimental scientific procedure follows logically. One thing, Mead contends, has been wholly neg- lected. It is the emergent.

In Mead's system the novel or the emergent is the starting point of all reflective thinking. The emergent is that which by definition is not only unpre- dicted, but unpredictable. Yet it is vitally real and defines the locus of the present or of existence. From the epistemological standpoint the emergent is that to which neither habitual ways of acting nor, consequently, categorial interpretations of experience will answer. It is that which gives rise to the construction of new interpretative categories and, consequently, to new habits. Metaphysically the emergent is qualitatively different from the conditions necessary for it; i.e., its past. Adequate consideration of the emergent (which enters experience as an exception to both established habits and mental attitudes) requires that interpretive categories be changed so as to bring the exception (i.e., the brute fact) within the scope of reason.

Since the emergent is unpredictable it escapes the epistemology of both the mechanist and the finalist and is for each unknowable. Since both mechanists and the finalists claim to know the real, it escapes their metaphysical doctrines. But by recognizing the emergent as real and knowable it becomes for Mead that which brings finalism and mechanism together by way of a present which in fact is essential to both.

However, one should not think of Mead's system as simply an attempt to reconcile the somewhat conflicting doctrines of finalism and mechanism. Mead actually rejects both finalism and mechanism as such. Yet he clearly recognizes that traditional philosophers were not talking sheer nonsense. He shows how it is possible by simply over-emphasizing various single phases of the scientific method (or by treating a particular present as final and absolute) to terminate in either realism or idealism or materialism or finalism and thus by his system Mead is able to account for the various traditional systems and their limitations. But his main purpose is to abstract a method of knowing from the obviously successful activity of scientists. That which gives rise to experimentation is the exceptional experience, or that which was not and could not have been predicted from previously accepted laws and theories. Experiments are designed to aid in the formulation and in the testing of hypotheses, not to demonstrate them. Experiments, in a word, are set up with the intent of reconstructing the history (past) of an emergent so as to be able to reproduce it or predict its re- currence or to control it. In fact, then, the emergent is that which defines the locus of the problem for scientists, and the histories or pasts as well as the

be known only in so far as it can be reduced to its causes (mechanical, material, or efficient causes or formal and final causes). This traditional view amounts to saying that time is not an essential character of reality, and indeed that the temporal is unreal. More boldly still, that which exists is unreal and unknowable, and only the eternal material or ideal objects are real.

41


DAVID L. MILLER

futures belong to the emergents. In more general terms, the past is a past of the present and the future is a future of the present.

There is a sense in which every present is taken as final in our intelligent conduct. From the standpoint of practical living there are many inherited attitudes and scientific statements which we take for granted and which pre- scribe the form of the experience of the near oncoming events. Yet science has taught us that no attitude or factual statement is beyond question. That is, there is no dogma in the scientific "habit of mind." An explicit recognition of the lack of absolute finality of any particular perspective puts one in readiness to change both his interpretation of phenomena and, consequently, his habits of conduct when the unanticipated occurs. Yet neither the rationalism of the materialist nor the logic of the idealist answers to this inductive phase of scientific procedure. Hence Mead graciously gives up the quest for certainty and fully recognizes the emergent as that which precludes finality. Furthermore he conceives of time itself as being abstracted from the unusual; i.e., the unpredictable events. That which makes history is not the repeatable but the irrepeatable, the irrevocable. In giving up the quest for certainty Mead im- plicitly forsakes the old theory of causation so tenaciously held to by even contemporary emergent evolutionists.3 Yet he accepts a modified theory of causation, as we will see subsequently.

In the twentieth century it has been fashionable enough to speak of emergence. Most scientists and philosophers will grant that in change or in time there appears something other than what was here in the past-something qualitatively different. Yet few if any have been able to free themselves sufficiently from the traditional idols of the theatre to make room for the emergent in their system. Even the most outstanding evolutionists do but lip service to exceptional experience and straightway return to the idol: "e nihilo nihil fit." The idol itself is not dangerous. It is the inference from it: "the effect must be in and

3 The classical theory of causation is conceived in relation to knowing and prediction thus: The caused is predictable. LaPlace supports this view extensively. Those who defend some such theory as Heisenberg's principle of indeterminacy also deny causation. I.e., they talk of "chance" and "statistical laws" as over against causal laws, for they hold with classical physicists that the unpredictable is also uncaused. Mead rejects the classical theory. But emergents, though unpredictable, are nevertheless caused, and our search for the conditions under which they occur is a search after their causes. Understanding, accordingly, consists not in assimilating effect to cause, which presumably is the only way in which prediction is possible according to tradition, but rather in conceiving the processes by which the emergent arises.

Although Alexander states that cause and effect are not alike, it is difficult to interpret him as believing in genuine novelty. The Deity, the next level, is said to be felt or envi- saged. Hence it is present in some form; if not metaphysically, at least logically. But emergence is the epigenesis of new forms both metaphysically and epistemologically.

Morgan contends that "all that has been and will be expressed in the consummated course of evolutionary progress . . ." is already included in God's purpose. Obviously, he accepts the old theory that effects must be assimilated to their causes and that, consequently, there is nothing new under the sun. (See Emergent Evolution, p. 301; Mind at the Crossways, Chap. XII.)

42


G. H. MEAD'S CONCEPTION OF "PRESENT"

(consequently) like the cause." In defending this theory of causation it follows that in seeking knowledge we are seeking after the eternal cause or causes and, consequently, after the absolute truth. Hence even the "emergentists" can only repeat: Evolution is a process of unfolding that which is enfolded, of making explicit that which is implicit. Then the arguments follow in turn-either the novel has no cause and we live in a capricious chaotic world or the novel is merely an appearnace, new to us, and could or may have been foreseen by one with an angelic mind, for that which is caused must somehow be from the foundations of the world.

Mead holds firmly to the traditional belief that existing things have causes or necessary conditions for their existence. He holds that its past is the necessary condition for an emergent. I-e does not accept the principle of indeterminacy, which denies traditional causal theory. IIowever, in Humean fashion, Mead denies that an effect is like its cause. In fact it is just that qualitative difference between cause and effect which validates our distinguishing between cause and effect. This qualitative difference constitutes the emergent and defines the locus of the present. In science this emergent with its characteristic qualitative difference delimits the locus of the problem, which is the stimulus of all reflective thinking.4 In acknowledging the emergent, then, Mead does not deny that it has a cause (a past), but the problem becomes: What is its past? The past which we spread behind us is the past of the emergent (the locus of the present) and is designed to account for the causal conditions necessary for the emergent. Similarly, this past is employed in predictions or in the idea- tional construction of the future which also necessarily presupposes a present. In so far as what is predicted becomes actual, just so far does that part of the past from which these predictions were made remain unchanged in our body of knowledge. But the oncoming events constantly serve as a check against our anticipation and predictions, and as it happens there are always some events which either fall entirely outside our predictions or invalidate them. These exceptional events are the very ones calling for reflective thinking which in turn leads to the reconstruction of our "laws" and their implied predictions. In this way a new past and a new future relative to the emergent (the unanticipated) transcends and takes the place of the old; for a new present has emerged.

It is well established by scientific procedure that both pasts and the futures referred to by our statement of the conditions leading to the present and by our predictions must be posited hypothetically. In a word, although the present from a practical standpoint contains the indubitable data serving as a basis for inferring the past and the future, such a present has in fact never (and

4 The book, Creative Intelligence, seems to be devoted to the proposition that mind creates or formulates new theories and laws pertaining to nature. Of course, these for- mulations must stand the test of prediction; nevertheless they are not predetermined nor do they follow logically from previous attitude. Rather they are induced from brute experience.

43


DAVID L. MILLER

Mead contends can never be) been accepted unconditionally and as final in making unlimited predictions. A closer analysis shows that just as our futures must be posited hypothetically, so their corresponding pasts (which are projected into the future in prediction) are hypothetical. In fact, then, the present does not contain or imply either the past or the future necessarily; i.e., using "necessarily" in the traditional sense. The reason for this limitation placed on any present is that that present is qualitatively different from its past. A present is an effect; its past holds the cause which is qualitatively different. Hence we must get at the past (and the future) by way of the present, and the present implies its corresponding past and future in the same sense of necessity as a broken window implies that there are boys in the neighborhood. The presence of boys and a broken window are quite consistent facts, but a study of one such fact in detail will not lead necessarily to the other. Hence, in general, if the past which we posit is (or was) what we believe it to be, then our present can well be what experience shows, and it is accounted for. But some other past might also well account for this same present. Of course, adhering to the law of parsimony and agreeing also that if two different accounts (or pasts) imply or mean the same things they are equivalent, there is no need to talk about several or different pasts. However the oncoming events include emergents, just those things which old accounts did not include. The emergent calls for a new past-a past which includes the cause of the emergent as well as the causes of the expe- riences of yesterday.

It is futile to argue in arm-chair fashion that the past and the future are logically implied by the present. Similarly, to argue in idealistic fashion that the past gives us the sense of direction toward which we are moving is a play on words. These arguments are circular; they beg the point in question, and are simply re-affirmation of the doctrines supporting them. The arguments are valid if the doctrines are valid.

Mead breaks the circularity of philosophic argument concerning the static nature of past and future by going directly to the procedure of the scientists. If there is anything taken for granted in Mead's approach it is that historically the human mind was seeking after a method of solving problems, and that the highest expression of this quest is found in science where the intellect and bodily action are coordinated. His assumption, then, is opposed to a metaphysical and epistemological dualism.

After laying aside what philosophers in their traditional entanglements have said about knowing and reality, Mead considers the scientific procedure as such. From this he develops an epistemology, and then considers its implications for metaphysics. It is in the consideration of metaphysics that he discusses the questions: Are the past and the future "there;" do they exist? What is the durational extent of the present? These questions shall be considered presently.

Mead begins by asking, what starts the scientist thinking? Science is not simply a working-out of the implications of a set of unquestioned postulates. Rather the exceptional experience is central in investigation, and induction takes

44


G. H. MEAD S CONCEPTION OF "PRESENT

precedence over deduction in experimentation. The laws, theories, and formal rules are arrived at hypothetically and this arrival constitutes the consumma- tory phase of induction. After investigation ceases the formulated results radiate from the emergent which originally set the problem. These results are put in the form of laws or hypotheses which both include an account of the emergent and predict (presumably) all future instances of events of the same type as the emergent. Thus the pasts and futures implied in laws, theories, and hypotheses radiate from the emergents whose pasts and futures they are.

Can we conclude, then, that the past is there, and that we can refer to it or indicate it as such without bringing in the limitations, prejudices, and the temporal perspective from which we do in fact see it? Mead's answer is that we can not. We can not because: (1) To know consists not in assimilating the effects to their causes but in getting hold of the temporally separated, qualitatively different conditions necessary for the emergence of effects. This whole procedure of finding the causal conditions for the effect (emergent) is first stimulated by the desire to illuminate our future, or to make predictions and to control the order of events. Hence knowing and knowledge always pivot around the emergent, the present. (2) The very nature of knowing consists in viewing a past and a future from the point of view of particular problems. There is no such thing as a problem in general. Hence to know and to think necessitates a particular perspective which is an essential part of the knowing process. This is the dynamic, functional theory of knowledge. (3) A present logically implies its corresponding past and future in the same sense in which a law of nature supported by experience implies both its past (or history of verification) and its future (or the predictions made from it). Similarly, a past and a future logically (i.e., from the point of view of experimental science) imply that with reference to which they are past and future.

It should be understood clearly that Mead does not reduce the past and future to the (or a) present. Rather he is explaining the meanings of "past" and "future" with reference to the present. Explanation, understanding, and knowing are conceived in functional terms. Hence to understand is not to reduce one thing to another in mechanistic and finalistic fashion, nor to "see" the form of the one in the other. Rather it is to conceive a process (temporal phenomena) and then to get hold (ideationally) of the temporal order of the various phases of the process. These phases are all qualitatively different. Any phase may be considered an effect of preceding phases. There is no problem of seeing how it is possible for one phase (or event) to be qualitatively different from its cause. That is taken for granted. How can water emerge from gases, is not an epistemological problem. It just does. The question is: Under what conditions do qualitatively different things emerge? Such questions arise in a present, and answers to them involve a past and a future. Hence, just as effect and cause are not commensurable (from a qualitative standpoint) so neither is the past or the future reduced to a present.

Thus the questions: Do the past and future have being? Do they exist? are answered negatively by Mead. They do not have being according to either

45


DAVID L. MILLER

Mead's or the traditional conception of "exists." From this particular angle, then, Mead gives an anti-metaphysical interpretation of the scientific method. That is, his interpretation renders traditional metaphysical problems fruitless and, I presume, meaningless. Yet in Mead's system there is what might best be called a metaphysics. And inasmuch as the theory of causation and of knowing pivot about the emergent or the exceptional experience, so his metaphysics derives from this central factor. Consequently the emergent, the individual exceptional experience, and the perspective are central from an objective metaphysical point of view. Individual experience and perspectives are central from the epistemological point of view, and his metaphysics and epistemology, as in tradition, are inseparable.

Mead, then, is a pluralist. From the rejection of the reductive method of explanation (or the theory that in knowing we must assimilate an effect to its cause) and from the acceptance of the emergent as central in his system, it follows that Mead believes in the reality of many perspectives5 and of many presents. From his theory of causation (that effect and cause are qualitatively incommensurable) it follows that there are different (qualitatively different-and lawfully different) levels of reality, none of which has metaphysical priority over any other, but from a causal standpoint some involve others, but not the con- verse. From the standpoint of control, Mead contends that the physical (manipulatory) object takes precedence over all others. E. G. Our efforts to control, say color experience, health, etc., leads back to the manipulatory object. But the physical object is not metaphysically more real in his system. Mead's pluralism derives from his theory of knowing which, in turn, considers action within a natural environment as that with reference to which all conception must (if at all) be explained.

University of Texas.

See "Objective Reality of Perspectives," in Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress of Philosophy, 1926.

46


Article Contentsp. 40p. 41p. 42p. 43p. 44p. 45p. 46

Issue Table of ContentsPhilosophy of Science, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Jan., 1943), pp. 1-58Volume Information [pp. 56-57]Front MatterCosmic Attributes [pp. 1-12]The Essential Problem of Empiricism [pp. 13-17]Behavior, Purpose and Teleology [pp. 18-24]Creative Imagination and Indeterminism [pp. 25-33]Physics and Idealism [pp. 34-39]G. H. Mead's Conception of "Present" [pp. 40-46]The Intelligibility of Whitehead's Philosophy [pp. 47-55]Back Matter

david l. miller - gh mead's conception of present.pdf

Documents