Page:Philosophical Review Volume 18.djvu/66

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52
THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW.
[Vol. XVIII.

belief in a system of law has confirmed our confidence in reason, and the endeavor to comprehend it deepened our views of the rationality manifested in the world, at a time when faith in reason for its own sake stood badly in need of encouragement. It may well be that a similar result will follow as we continue to ponder the principles of social existence and the questions which society posits for the philosopher.

Four general sessions were on the programme, one for each of the four permitted languages, German, English, French, and Italian. Unfortunately this balance was disturbed by the illness of two of the principal speakers, Professors Henri Bergson, of Paris, and Lipps, of Munich. Thus the Congress missed the paper of the former on "L'idée de devenir" and the latter's discussion "Zum Begriff der Philosophie." In their places, as noted below, President Windelband and Professor H. Maier, Tübingen, consented to speak. Thus rearranged the programme of the general sessions was as follows: September 1, Opening of the Congress, Addresses of Greeting, etc.; paper by Professor Royce, "The Nature of Truth in the Light of Recent Discussions." September 2, B. Croce, "Il carattere lirico dell'arte e l'intuitione pura." September 3, E. Boutroux, "L'état de la philosophie en France depuis 1867"; Professor Windelband, "Ueber den Begriff des Gesetzes." September 5, Professor Maier, "David Friedrich Strauss"; conclusion of the Congress.

Royce attributed contemporary interest in the problem of truth to three motives, expressed respectively in instrumentalism, individualism, and the recent revision of pure mathematics together with the new logic attending it. The first two motives are related to pragmatism; the third is often confounded with intellectualism, but it may more justly be interpreted in voluntaristic terms, and so be called "absolute pragmatism." This motive involves deep interest in the exactness of mathematical method and a rigid ideal of truth, which the pragmatists, "from a distance," misunderstand. Its researches have developed a new logic, a logic of the relations on which all thinking must depend. The system of these relations has certain absolute forms. Such forms are not given us as intuitive certainties, nor are they discoverable by analysis, as