F. C. S. Schiller

Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller ( born August 16, 1864 in Ottensen in Buxtehude; † August 9, 1937 in Los Angeles ) was a British philosopher of German descent and an important representative of pragmatism.

Schiller grew up in Rugby. He studied at Oxford and was also working as a German teacher at Eton College. After earning a Master of Arts Schiller went from 1893 to 1897 to Ithaca as a graduate student and instructor at Cornell University. From 1897 he returned to Oxford, where he was a professor for many years. From 1926 he was a Visiting Lecturer periodically at the University of Southern California. After his appointment as a professor, he was constantly since 1930 in Los Angeles working.

Schiller was 1900-1926 Treasurer of the Mind Association. From 1921 to 1922 he served as president of the Aristotelian Society. In 1926 he became a Fellow of the British Academy.

Schiller took like William James a subjectivist pragmatism, which he later called because of the incorporated therein justification of the idea of ​​freedom, progress and humanism. He turned sharply against the absolute idealism of Francis Herbert Bradley and later against the logical positivism of Bertrand Russell, as well as against. He defended the thesis of the creation of reality by man. One of his principles was " all thought is action." Schiller joined his pragmatism closely with the theory of evolution and was one of the founding members of the English Eugenics Society.

Riddles of the Sphinx

In 1891 Schiller published his first book, " Riddles of the Sphinx" ( Riddle of the Sphinx ) anonymously because he feared in a naturalistic dominated time that his metaphysical speculative writing could impair his professional development ( Riddle, xi). He criticized in this work naturalism as " pseudometaphysisch " who simply ignore the fact that is the prerequisite for a naturalistic description of the world. Therefore, no statements about the "higher" questions of the world as free will, consciousness, God, purpose, or universals, the naturalists are possible. On the other hand, he turns but also against idealism as nonsensical degeneration of speculative metaphysics. This is in turn not be able to take information to the " lower " position issues such as the imperfect, the change or cosmology. Both paths lead to skepticism and are therefore not suitable to provide a secure basis for knowledge and morality.

In Riddles Schiller sat critical look at historical examples of abstract metaphysics as Plato, Zeno, and Hegel. In particular, the Hegelians He accused not to deal due to abstractions with facts and reality. Universal ideals and the Absolute be no support in coping with the practical imperfect world. The truths of Hegel do not apply in here, but in eternity, and independent of time and change. In the world of the imagination, there is not the morally imperfect that you understand and from which we must learn.

Concrete metaphysics

As an alternative, the man needs a method with which he rightly found both in the "higher " than in the " lower " side of the world, a method that the excellence of the two alternatives used ( Riddle 164/165 ). Metaphysics must be concrete and systematically and use the results of Sciences. Metaphysics must be understood as the science of the first principles of the sciences as in the times of Aristotle. Subject of such metaphysics are the creation of the world, the origin of life, the explanation of consciousness from the unconscious, emergence or the teleology of evolution ( Riddle 205).

Will to Believe

His alternative to skepticism, whose foundation was already included in "Riddle of the Sphinx ", Schiller developed after 1897, " The Will to Belief" was published by William James in "Personal Idealism ", in which it, among others, the essay " axiom as postulate " is included. Will to Belief is the basis for that man accepts the causality, the unity of nature, the concepts of identity, contradiction, the principle of the excluded middle, the concepts of space and time, the goodness of God and other things as axioms of logic that are based on our thinking. These axioms do not arise from evidence, but from the needs of the people. Your confirmation arises from the success of the action. This success is to postulate the basis for the validity of the axioms. Because the abstractions of metaphysics arising from the observations of real life circumstances. Basic truths can not be abstracted as an end in itself, but serve the prediction of things to allow a prediction of his own life ( humanism, 1903, 104)

Natural bases of judgment

Judgments have no meaning or truth, regardless of their actual use. The investigation of formal logic without reference to specific circumstances is a mistake of the same kind as it makes the abstract metaphysics. Symbols are meaningless if they are not applied in specific situations. Their function is the tools. The ability to judgments is a result of evolution. There were long thought before there were arguments, and there were long life before it was thinking. Even in the developed life judgments is rarer than thinking and thinking rarer than purely expedient behavior. Most behavior results from innate habits ( habits ), instincts and impulses. Thoughts like reason, reflection, reasoning, judgment is an exception, which arises due to interference. They serve to adapt to unfamiliar circumstances. The idea of ​​philosophers, that man at any time act on the basis of thoughts, is wrong ( Logic for Use, 1929, 197/198 ).

A statement receives its truth in that they proved successful for someone in regard to a particular purpose. Thus, a statement has meaning, it is not enough that their is an experience based. It is necessary that their relevance plays in relation to the objectives of a person in a particular situation. Thus, the phrase " diamonds are hard" only in a certain context, a certain meaning. It can be used to come in the glass cutting, but also in the context of a fun or as an example of a sentence with a certain number of letters. It depends on the context.

Works

• Riddles of the Sphinx (1891 ), 1910 revised edition
• Personal Idealism (1902 ), collection of essays, in which: axiom as postulate
• Humanism (1903 ), 2nd edition 1912
• Studies in Humanism (1907 )
• Plato or Protagoras? (1908 )
• Formal Logic (1912 )
• Problems of Belief (1924, second edition )
• Logic for Use (1929 )
• Our Human Truths (1939 ), posthumously