Elements of Metaphysics — A. E. Taylor
Elements of Metaphysics | Project Gutenberg You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title : Elements of metaphysics Author : A. E. Taylor Release date : October 15, 2023 [eBook #71885] Language : English Original publication : London: Methuen, 1903 Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/71885 Credits : Emmanuel Ackerman, KD Weeks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) *** START OF Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation. Any corrections are indicated using an underline highlight. Placing the cursor over the correction will produce the original text in a small popup. New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain. Any corrections are indicated as hyperlinks, which will navigate the reader to the corresponding entry in the corrections table in the note at the end of the text. Elements of Metaphysics A. E. TAYLOR Late Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh πατρὶς δὴ ἡμῖν ὅθενπερ ἤλθομεν καὶ πατὴρ ἐκεῖ UNIVERSITY PAPERBACKS METHUEN : LONDON First published by Methuen & Co Ltd in 1903 Printed in Great Britain by Morrison & Gibb Ltd, Edinburgh Catalogue No 2/6775/27 University Paperbacks are published by METHUEN & CO LTD 36 Essex Street, Strand, London WC2 and BARNES & NOBLE INC 105 Fifth Avenue, New York 3 TO F. H. BRADLEY In heartfelt acknowledgment of all that his example and his writings have been to the men of my generation Ante Ararim Parthus bibet, aut Germania Tigrim, Quam nostro illius labatur pectore vultus. ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS Elements of Metaphysics | Project Gutenberg PREFACE In acknowledging my indebtedness to recent writers for many of the ideas contained in the following pages, I have in the first place to express my deep and constant obligations to the various works of Mr. F. H. Bradley. My chief debt to other recent English-speaking philosophers is to Professor Royce and Professor Ward, and I am perhaps scarcely less indebted to Professor Stout. My chief obligations to Continental writers are to Avenarius and to Professor Münsterberg. I trust, however, that there is not one of the authors with whose views I have dealt in the course of my work from whom I have not learned something. At the same time I ought perhaps to say here once for all that I make no claim to represent the views of any one author or school, and I shall not be surprised if the thinkers to whom I owe most find themselves unable to endorse all that I have written. With respect to the references given at the end of the several chapters, I may note that their aim is simply to afford the reader some preliminary guidance in the further prosecution of his studies. They make no pretence to completeness, and are by no means exclusively drawn from writers who support my own conclusions. One or two important works of which I should have otherwise been glad to make extended use have appeared too recently for me to avail myself of them. I may mention especially the late Professor Adamson’s Lectures on the Development of Modern Philosophy , Professor Ostwald’s Vorlesungen über Naturphilosophie , and Mr. B. Russell’s Principles of Mathematics , vol. 1. Finally, I have to express my gratitude to my friends Professor S. Alexander and Mr. P. J. Hartog for their kindness in reading large portions of my proofs and offering many valuable corrections and suggestions. 1903 The sudden demand for a re-issue of this volume prevents my making any alterations beyond the correction of a number of misprints. Had the opportunity offered, I should have been glad, while leaving the main argument essentially as it stands, to have attempted certain improvements in details. I may mention in particular, as the most important of the changes I could have wished to make, that the treatment of the problem of infinite regress and of the Kantian antinomies would have been remodelled, and I trust improved, as a consequence of study of the works of Mr. Bertrand Russell and M. Couturat. I should like to take this opportunity of thanking all those who have been kind enough to favour me with criticisms of the book. Elements of Metaphysics | Project Gutenberg CONTENTS BOOK I GENERAL NOTIONS CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM OF THE METAPHYSICIAN PAGE #§1. The generality and simplicity of the metaphysical problem make it difficult to define the study. §2. Problem is suggested by the presence of contradictions in ordinary experience. §3. . By making a distinction between reality and appearance the sciences remove some of these contradictions, but themselves lead to further difficulties of the same sort; hence the need for systematic inquiry into the meaning of the distinction between the real and the apparent, and the general character of reality as such. §4. . Metaphysics, as an inquiry into the ultimate meaning of “reality,” is akin to poetry and religion, but differs from them in its scientific character, from the mathematical and experimental sciences in its method, from common scepticism in the critical nature of its methods as well as in its positive purpose. §5. . The study is difficult ( a ) because of the generality of its problems, ( b ) and because we cannot employ diagrams or physical experiments. §6. . The objection that Metaphysics is an impossibility may be shown in all its forms to rest upon self-contradictory assumptions of a metaphysical kind. §7. . The minor objections that, if possible, the science is superfluous, or at least stationary, may be