[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.But most thinking is notand could not be like this. Disciplined does not mean the same as regimented or drilled.A person s thinking is subject to disciplinesif, for example, he systematically takes precautions against personal bias,tries to improve the orderliness or clarity of his theory, checks his refer-ences, his dates or his calculations, listens attentively to his critics, huntsindustriously for exceptions to his generalizations, deletes ambiguous,vague or metaphorical expressions from the sinews of his arguments, andso on indefinitely.His thinking is controlled, in high or low degree, by awide range of quite specific scruples; and this is very different from theway in which his multiplying and dividing are regimented by those fewstereotyped drills that were inculcated in him in his schooldays.Moreover, the excogitation of a theory, or of a comprehensive andexplanatory historical narrative, is not a morning s task, like laying twohundred bricks, or a five minutes task, like a piece of long division.It canbe a month s task or a decade s task, like constructing a garden.Its devel-opment is a gradual, fitful and intermittent affair.Hypotheses have to beleft to germinate, grow, flower and seed themselves, or, still more often, towither and to die.Ideas have to be weeded out, or pruned back or trans-planted; the soil has to be left fallow; pests have to be poisoned, and so on.Now, at last, we can begin to see more clearly than before how the ideasof rationality, reasonableness and reasons are internal to the notion of thethinking that needs to be graded as intellectual work.For this thinkingessentially embodies the element of self-correction.Hunch, native senseof direction, following good examples, though indispensable, are nolonger enough.The thinker cares, at least a little bit, whether he getsthings right or wrong; he is at least slightly concerned to think properly.This involves that the question of justification is always a live question.Forany hypothesis or suggestion that is made, for any question that is asked,for any argument that is constructed or even sketched, for any examplethat is adduced, for any word or phrase or even comma that is used,the challenge is there in the foreground or in the background, Why? , With what right? , For what reason? In this respect, the ever-presentjustification-demand is like the justification-demand that can always bemade for any action that we perform and even for any of our reactions orfeelings that are to rank as being specifically human.But the differencethat matters to us is that the reasons given in justification of intellectual ortheoretical operations or efforts are necessarily themselves intellectual 446 COLLECTED PAPERS: VOLUME 2or theoretical reasons.They are ex officio propositional considerations.Theyare not ex officio moral or prudential or aesthetic reasons, any more than theyare reasons of courtesy, fashion, competitive prowess or good business.Naturally, though unfortunately, the preoccupation of philosopherswith theoretical reasons or justifications has often induced them to treatpractical reasons and justifications as mere varieties or off-shoots of theor-etical reasons, as if all scruples and all carefulness reduced, somehow, totheorists scruples and theorists carefulness.The genus has been reducedto a variety of one of its own species, just because this species has, anddeserves, so special a cachet.Remembering too well that the historianmust reply to the question With what justification? by citing his docu-mentary or archaeological evidence; or remembering too well that aEuclid must reply to the question With what justification? by adducing aderivation from axioms, philosophers have sometimes yielded to thetemptation of supposing that the question With what justification? whenasked about an action, or an emotion, or a literary innovation should alsobe replied to by adducing a proof, or at least something colourably like aproof, or by adducing a corpus of bits of evidence, or at least of thingscolourably like bits of evidence. How else, we can hear them muttering, how else could a reason be a justification of something, unless in the wayin which a premiss is a reason for a conclusion? How could there bepractical successes or failures save as repercussions of successes or failuresin theorizing? How could a person do the right thing or do a wrong thing,save as the after-effect of doing the right theoretical thing or a wrongtheoretical thing? How could a person be a backslider in his conduct, saveas the after-effect of a bit of back-sliding in his theoretical reflectionsabout how he should behave? To ask such questions as these surely is toask, in effect, How could a person learn anything in the nursery, unless hehad already learned in the university how to learn nursery lessons? or How could M [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.But most thinking is notand could not be like this. Disciplined does not mean the same as regimented or drilled.A person s thinking is subject to disciplinesif, for example, he systematically takes precautions against personal bias,tries to improve the orderliness or clarity of his theory, checks his refer-ences, his dates or his calculations, listens attentively to his critics, huntsindustriously for exceptions to his generalizations, deletes ambiguous,vague or metaphorical expressions from the sinews of his arguments, andso on indefinitely.His thinking is controlled, in high or low degree, by awide range of quite specific scruples; and this is very different from theway in which his multiplying and dividing are regimented by those fewstereotyped drills that were inculcated in him in his schooldays.Moreover, the excogitation of a theory, or of a comprehensive andexplanatory historical narrative, is not a morning s task, like laying twohundred bricks, or a five minutes task, like a piece of long division.It canbe a month s task or a decade s task, like constructing a garden.Its devel-opment is a gradual, fitful and intermittent affair.Hypotheses have to beleft to germinate, grow, flower and seed themselves, or, still more often, towither and to die.Ideas have to be weeded out, or pruned back or trans-planted; the soil has to be left fallow; pests have to be poisoned, and so on.Now, at last, we can begin to see more clearly than before how the ideasof rationality, reasonableness and reasons are internal to the notion of thethinking that needs to be graded as intellectual work.For this thinkingessentially embodies the element of self-correction.Hunch, native senseof direction, following good examples, though indispensable, are nolonger enough.The thinker cares, at least a little bit, whether he getsthings right or wrong; he is at least slightly concerned to think properly.This involves that the question of justification is always a live question.Forany hypothesis or suggestion that is made, for any question that is asked,for any argument that is constructed or even sketched, for any examplethat is adduced, for any word or phrase or even comma that is used,the challenge is there in the foreground or in the background, Why? , With what right? , For what reason? In this respect, the ever-presentjustification-demand is like the justification-demand that can always bemade for any action that we perform and even for any of our reactions orfeelings that are to rank as being specifically human.But the differencethat matters to us is that the reasons given in justification of intellectual ortheoretical operations or efforts are necessarily themselves intellectual 446 COLLECTED PAPERS: VOLUME 2or theoretical reasons.They are ex officio propositional considerations.Theyare not ex officio moral or prudential or aesthetic reasons, any more than theyare reasons of courtesy, fashion, competitive prowess or good business.Naturally, though unfortunately, the preoccupation of philosopherswith theoretical reasons or justifications has often induced them to treatpractical reasons and justifications as mere varieties or off-shoots of theor-etical reasons, as if all scruples and all carefulness reduced, somehow, totheorists scruples and theorists carefulness.The genus has been reducedto a variety of one of its own species, just because this species has, anddeserves, so special a cachet.Remembering too well that the historianmust reply to the question With what justification? by citing his docu-mentary or archaeological evidence; or remembering too well that aEuclid must reply to the question With what justification? by adducing aderivation from axioms, philosophers have sometimes yielded to thetemptation of supposing that the question With what justification? whenasked about an action, or an emotion, or a literary innovation should alsobe replied to by adducing a proof, or at least something colourably like aproof, or by adducing a corpus of bits of evidence, or at least of thingscolourably like bits of evidence. How else, we can hear them muttering, how else could a reason be a justification of something, unless in the wayin which a premiss is a reason for a conclusion? How could there bepractical successes or failures save as repercussions of successes or failuresin theorizing? How could a person do the right thing or do a wrong thing,save as the after-effect of doing the right theoretical thing or a wrongtheoretical thing? How could a person be a backslider in his conduct, saveas the after-effect of a bit of back-sliding in his theoretical reflectionsabout how he should behave? To ask such questions as these surely is toask, in effect, How could a person learn anything in the nursery, unless hehad already learned in the university how to learn nursery lessons? or How could M [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]