THE GROWTH OF IDEAS

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29850, 16 June 1962, Page 3

THE GROWTH OF IDEAS

Reason and Analysis. By Brand Blanshard. Allen and Unwin. 492 pp. Bibliography and Index.

Professor Blanshard, of Yale, sets himself the massive task of summarising the whole growth of the analytic philosophy of the last 60 years. The growth of ideas since the turn of the century has been such that the reading and understanding demanded by this task would be beyond all but the very best intellects. Whether or not Professor Blanchard has succeeded in making clear all branches of the new analytic thought, none will doubt that his attempt is worthy of commendation. Students in both the rationalist and the analytic camps will no doubt make their own evaluations, but will agree that most views have been clearly and concisely put. “Reason” in philosophy is generally taken to mean the faculty of arriving at truths through the use of the intellect, through the ability to recognise and grasp necessary connexions. The work of the mathematician is commonly proposed as an obvious example of this. Those adopting this as their philosophy are the rationalists, and they believe that these truths are the most important that we can possess. On the other hand the analysts, who have taken over much of philosophy since 1900, believe that truth is more likely to be found if we pay closer attention to the basic meanings of the terms which we are using

The book follows the development of the rationalist philosophy since the days of the early Greeks, touching on Descartes, Spinoza. Leibniz, Kant and Hegel, but ignoring the British empiricists The rise of positivism with the Vienna circle under the generalship of Moritz Schlick receives very full treatment, together with the logical atomism of Wittgenstein. The death of Schlick at the hands of a demented student in the late 1930's probably arrested further development of those notions

From these and others, reason as a source of knowledge and rationalism as a practical idea, have both been under attack. This. Professor Blanshard attributes to several causes—world wars, the setting up of powerful dictatorships, and the notable advances in science and technology—all of which have profoundly affected ways of thinking as well as attitudes to ultimate truths and ends With justification, the development of the "linguistic philosophy" receives generous space in ’his book G E Moore and A J Ayer are reviewed and given scant approval The ordinary language philosophy” commonly associated with Oxford of the 1940’s and 1950'5, and applied in many different fields of philosophy by its proponents, is also not accepted by this author.

Professor Blanshard says on this topic: "Our complaint is not that these studies are profitless, but that the profit

is so meagre in proportion to the price. There are grains of wheat, and of high quality, among the chaff. But why should one have to hunt for them in these bushels and bushels and bushels of words about words.” Why indeed? Only because the hunters have found those paths a more dependable way out of what could appear to some as a veritable jungle of half-truths, misunderstandings and misinterpretations, any of which could easily be embraced in an effort to gain an ultimate and impregnable position. It is plain that Professor Blanshard does not recognise this stand.

How far does reason apply to nature? Professor Blanshard, an unashamed rationalist himself, sets out to show that his “power and function of grasping necessary connexions” is not restricted to such tautologies as “all bachelors aie unmarried,” but will also cover the linking of all things experienced by us, perhaps also things which we do not experience but which are still presumed to exist., and perhaps also will go as far as Hegel would wish, so tnat all things in the world are connected together in “one vast web of neces* sity

This Professor Blanshard sets but to do by the Study of universals in nature, and the work done by reason in linking them together. Necessities in nature come in for the same treatment. Professor Blanshard holding that logical laws, and arithmetical statements, and geometry, do report the actual structure of things in this world of ours While we do not have :o agree with Professor Blanshard s general conclus ons. there is much to admire in the *ay in which he has set out his approaches to a problem wiilft has taxed excellent minds for many centuries To have the whole position and counter-position summarised, within the confines of one cover, will undouotedly aid further attempts to resolve this problem.