Mind Association

Against Empiricism: On Education, Epistemology and Value. by R. F. HollandReview by: John WhiteMind, New Series, Vol. 91, No. 363 (Jul., 1982), pp. 465-467Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Mind AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2253241 .Accessed: 24/01/2013 07:19

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BOOK REVIEWS 465

It is hard to be happy with this. To saddle materialism in the philosophy of mind with a commitment to the completeness of current physics (completeness, that is, as a physical theory) is doubly unfortunate; it would seem to render the view false, and it gives prominence in the formulation of the view to a thesis about current physics which simply fails to connect with the basic issues. It is not clear, either, that Levin has satisfactorily explained his notion of reduction. He attempts to do it in terms of a certain content in the envisaged scientific truth definitions; the content is not, it would seem, in the axioms but must be generated from these given some science, in a way I cannot see that Levin has explained. Given these doubts, it is also unclear whether his explanation of the conceptical resources really allows a particular-particular and type-type distinction to be drawn.

Levin's metaphysical argument is provocative, perplexing and un- persuasive, partly because it is very compressed, and it does not deepen our understanding of materialism. But the last four chapters provide interesting responses to many problems surrounding materialism (however it is precisely formulated) and, although not essential reading, can be recom- mended to anyone studying these issues.

EXETER COLLEGE, OXFORD P. F. SNOWDON

Against Empiricism: on Education, Epistemology and Value. By R. F. HOLLAND. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, I980. Pp. 248. ?12.50.

This is a fine collection of fourteen of Professor Holland's essays dating back with one exception to I965, six of them unpublished. Four are on education, four on ethics, two on suicide and four on metaphysics and religion.

Holland sums up his main theme well in his introduction: 'while the tenor of this book is against Empiricism, I am more concerned to speak for something than against anything. And I think that much of what I try to speak for can be found in Plato' (p. 9).

Negatively, these essays are a critique of several related lines of thought. 'Epistemology and Education' discusses the failure of Lockean episte- mology to connect education with the promotion of understanding, as opposed to habituation. Hume's accounts of causation are discussed in 'The Link between Cause and Effect'. More recent attempts, e.g. by Davidson, to 'volatilise' causes into relations between events are spurned for a robuster, commonsensical account based on contacts between physical objects like railway engines and the trucks on to which they are hooked. 'Suicide as a Social Problem' looks for enlightenment not through Durkheim's statistical techniques but through a reflection on the traditions and institutions of our society, which belongs to common understanding. Holland's review of the book 'Philosophers discuss Education', included here, gives high marks to R. K. Elliott's critique of Hirst's attempt to base

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466 BOOK REVIEWS

liberal education on specialised disciplines at the expense, again, of our common understanding. Consequentialist thinking in ethics generally and in its particular application to education is attacked in essay after essay.

Holland's deep attachment to Plato is apparent throughout. It is expressed in his commitment to reflectiveness about what we already know rather than to specialised scientific discovery. Educationally, Plato's discussion of the slave-boy's geometry lesson in the Meno has more to teach us than a Rylean philosophy of education based on 'knowing how'. 'Education and Values' connects education, as Plato did, with mastery at different levels of understanding, rather than with taking part in a competitive struggle. Among the ethical essays, 'Morality and the Two Worlds Concept' brackets Plato with Kant and Kierkegaard, as against Aristotle and the Utilitarians, in connecting the quest for goodness with inwardness; while 'Absolute Ethics, Mathematics and the Impossibility of Politics' champions not only Plato's belief in the existence of absolute goodness, but also the power of geometry to act as a model for an ethics at the opposite pole from utilitarianism, for which the only relevant mathe- rnatics is arithmetic.

Absolute ethics, the ethics of inwardness and of eternity, enshrines a religious view of man. The latter comes out, too, in 'Suicide', with its uncovering of the difficulties in establishing just what counts as taking one's own life: a vital issue for one who sees life as a gift, for 'the suicide, unlike the murderer, is-religiously speaking-necessarily an ingrate' (p. I53). The essay on 'The Miraculous' seeks to undermine Hume's scepticism: if we had been present when the water turned to wine, we may have been confronted with something 'at one and the same time empirically certain and conceptually impossible' (p. I 84). 'For Ever?' claims that there is something inherently paradoxical about the unlimited temporal 'for ever'. Our theoretical understanding can only work with a relative, not an absolute, 'for ever'; only in an ethico-religious employment is the latter possible. 'On the Form of the Problem of Evil' argues that Pike and Mackie have obscured the form of the problem by importing additional premises into the classical triad of propositions which constitute it. There is no inconsistency in the triad. We need not look for moral reasons why God introduced evil into the world. He may have had no reasons: a religious person might even see this as a manifestation of His love.

There is no doubt about the fascination and the profundity of Holland's philosophising. 'The kind of philosophical work that is most worth having has always tended to come from those in whom a sense of mystery has been nurtured and kept alive' (p. 93). All these essays breathe this sense of mystery, aided by the carefully wrought language in which they are written. Even where I could not go along with all the arguments, I felt mnyself affected, against myself, by Holland's vision-very much as one is, although not a Platonist, by that of Plato.

Absolute goodness is the theme to which Holland returns time and again. What it is is, like the Form of the Good, ultimately ineffable, although we know at least that it is not goal seeking, is sometimes seen in, for instance, 'the egregious fineness of an action like the rescue of an innocent person who is harmed or wronged' (p. ioo), is connected with a sense of wonder at

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BOOK REVIEWS 467

the world and with the standpoint of eternity. To me this makes good sense, to a point: ethics must begin in wonder at the mystery of human existence; and in the press of everyday utilitarian preoccupations we must take care not to lose our inwardness. Can one go so far and no further? Holland's sense of mystery takes him, I think, beyond this, from mystery towards mysticism. I cannot follow him in his ethico-religious vision of objective values; neither can I have faith, beyond all reason, in the paradoxical possibility of miracles, or in evil as the possible expression of God's love for us.

Holland's ethical monism leads him to underrate the irresolvable complexity of our moral life. Politics he sees as 'impossible' from the standpoint of the absolute: its ethic is consequentialism, its lifeblood compromise. Yes, but . . . some sort of political arrangements are unavoidable, however suitable a Kierkegaardian resignation to the outward world may be for the saint. At one point (p. io6) Holland allows that non- absolutist ethics can account for ninety per cent of all ethical phenomena. What interests him is the remainder. Others have broader outlooks. Among them not least Plato, whose absolute goodness irradiates and does not turn its back on the socio-political world. True, Plato, like Holland, teaches us to look inwards, to care for the unity, and hence the well-being, of the soul. For Plato, justice in the soul is inextricably connected with justice in the state. He has well-known difficulties in deriving the latter from the former. For Holland, however, all is inwardness: politics (unlike the miraculous, note) falls away as 'impossible'.

All this bears on what Holland says about education. Why are the mastery of intellectual pursuits for their own sake and understanding the spirit of a people through their literature, art and ways of thinking so important to Holland? If, as seems clear, it is because they urge the scholar on towards a perception of absolute values, then the question arises; what right does the educator have to impose his own ethical position, in this case an ethico-religious position, on his pupils? Has he the right to concentrate on his ten per cent of ethical phenomena or should he help them, too, to cope with the ninety per cent-with the world of work, politics and ordinary social intercourse?

Other questions disturb. Has 'knowing how' no place in education? Holland does seem to allow it some place in schooling. He says (p. 59) that children whose ability is 'manually orientated and practical' need different curricula from the more intellectually inclined. Does this mean, then, that education proper, as in Plato, is only for an elite few? It appears so. But important questions arise here both about what the content and aims of education should be and about whether these should differ for different children. On neither of these matters is Plato always the most dependable of guides.

INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION, JOHN WHITE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

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Article Contentsp. 465p. 466p. 467

Issue Table of ContentsMind, New Series, Vol. 91, No. 363 (Jul., 1982), pp. 321-480Front Matter [pp. ]Description and Identification [pp. 321-338]The Third Man's Contribution to Plato's Paradigmatism [pp. 339-357]Happiness [pp. 358-376]The Complete Reality of Substance [pp. 377-397]Responsibility Especially for Beliefs [pp. 398-417]DiscussionsNatural Kinds and Human Artifacts [pp. 418-419]Why must Homunculi be so Stupid? [pp. 420-422]On the Function of Consciousness [pp. 423-429]Is Wittgenstein's Goethe Stock's Goethe? [pp. 430-431]Defeasibility and Memory Knowledge [pp. 432-437]Eliminative Materialism--A Reply to Everitt [pp. 438-440]

Critical Notice [pp. 441-451]Book ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 452-455]Review: untitled [pp. 455-457]Review: untitled [pp. 457-459]Review: untitled [pp. 459-461]Review: untitled [pp. 461-465]Review: untitled [pp. 465-467]Review: untitled [pp. 468-470]Review: untitled [pp. 470-472]Review: untitled [pp. 473-475]

Books Received [pp. 476-479]Notices [pp. 480]Back Matter [pp. ]