Bowne examines the philosophy of Herbert Spencer and critiques the first principles of Spencer's system. This book is an important contribution to the critique of Spencer's philosophy. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, (...) as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

From the PREFACE. The aim of this work is given in its title. First, it is an "introduction" only, and does not go into the details or the literature of the subject. The aim is to point out the highways of psychology, rather than its myriad byways. Secondly, it is an "introduction to psychological theory," and aims less at a knowledge of facts than at an understanding of principles. Until principles are settled there is no bar to the most fantastic (...) theories and interpretations. These principles being illustrated in the most common facts of experience, it is not necessary to psychological insight to make an anthology of madhouse and hospital stories. Such a procedure has about the same relation to psychology that the various books of "wonders" or the "brilliant experiments" of the popular lecturer have to sober physical science. An odor of quackery is perceptible in both cases. The plan of the work precludes much attention to physiological psychology. Whatever the merits of this science may be, it presupposes pure psychology. If our aim is to give a physiological explanation of psychological facts, we must' first know the facts. Or if our aim is the more modest one of finding the physical conditions or attendants of mental facts, again we must know the facts. But this knowledge is not possible by the way of physiology, and in any case the mental facts remain what they always were. Their likenesses and differences and essential nature would not be changed if physiology were supreme. Even the "new psychology " would not give us new mental facts, but only a new interpretation of the old facts. The Zeitgeist itself begins at last to see this; and the naive onslaughts on the "old psychology" are happily growing fewer. Psychological literature shows very marked progress in this respect within the last twenty years. Physiology remains a most estimable science, but the physiological reconstruction of psychology has been postponed. The study of the physical conditions of our mental life has a pathological and practical importance; but it does not promise any valuable psychological results, at least for those who can distinguish between the physical conditions and the mental facts which they condition. The limitation of plan involves many omissions; and in these there will seem to be a measure of arbitrariness. Hence many will not find here what they want, and probably still more will find what they do not want. There seems to be no way of adjusting so grave a difficulty except by maintaining, on the one hand, freedom to publish, and, on the other, freedom not to read. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in (...) the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

The title of the volume is apt: Steinkraus succeeded in assembling an admirable collection, truly representative of the thought, the intellectual development and the spirit of one of the most remarkable figures of American philosophy, Borden Parker Bowne, for thirty six years--until his untimely death at 63 in 1910--a professor of philosophy at Boston University and one of the most prolific philosophic writers in America.

Borden Parker Bowne was the founder of the School of Philosophy in Boston, taught there for more than a generation, and made a lasting impression on American philosophy. During Bowne’s career at Boston University (from 1876 until his death 1910), many of his students, who later also became professors in different areas, were inspired by his thinking and his person. His basic conviction is that it is the human person that is at the basis of Ontology (...) and Ethics : the person that preserves its identity within change thanks to memory; the person that is active in knowing and choosing; the person that acts deliberately towards values; the person that thinks – all these at least potentially. The purpose of the article is to examine Bowne’s metaphysics, i.e. the roots of his view of Personalism. What emerges is his idea of existence in general and of human existence in particular. This is done also historically, by examining some earlier views of man and reality in general, which were the background for Bowne’s specific ideas. He begins from his idea of existence as active and self-determining, and of nature as activated by the intellect and will of God, the Most-High Person. That is why the human person has the attributes of awareness and self-awareness, freedom and the ability to act, and self-control. The connection of Bowne’s Personalism with idealism also presents the problem of how do we come to discover the notion of person, which is not from simple experience of reality, but is rather developed or postulated. For Bowne the model for the notion of person is the Person of God. If we look at reality from the perspective of God-Person (Person par excellence), there is the danger of theologizing Philosophical Anthropology, and a reality of Bowne’s metaphysics, which wasn’t very popular among many philosophers. Nonetheless Bowne’s ideas were positively received by the Church in America, and were used for many years as the model for defending the Christian world-view against the attacks of naturalism. In that context, his Personalism effectively fulfilled its role, showing the human person to be a spiritual being, ultimately coming from God, the Most-High Person. (shrink)

Under the influence of rationalism and various forms of absolute idealism in the nineteenth century, teleology took on the nature of fixity; the universe was held to be fulfilling a definite telos. Such teleology defined a closed universe. In the latter half of the same century the American pragmatists, under the influence of Bergson and Renouvier, began to develop their notion of an open universe: one whose possibilities were not predetermined but were evolving creatively. This necessarily involved a change in (...) the understanding of teleology as reflected, for example, in C. S. Peirce’s 1892 account of “developmental teleology.” These changes in turn led to the “open universe” views of Whitehead, Hartshorne, and process theology in general. Within this historical framework one view which deserves some recognition for its role in this transition is often overlooked, that is, the personalism of Borden Parker Bowne. Bowne’s personalism suggests both the need for redefining teleology and two possible avenues for accomplishing such redefinition. (shrink)

John Foster, an Oxford analytical philosopher, and Borden Parker Bowne, the founder of “Boston Personalism” at the turn of the twentieth century both presented unique arguments for idealism that are deeply different from one another. Because neither is now well known, this paper lays out their reasoning as carefully and as clearly as possible, finding Bowne’s case for personalist idealism to be the stronger of the two in terms of ontology. But the inquiry is framed on (...) the problems of the moral affordances of ontology and of the need of moral philosophy for grounding in ontology. Although this is a very large area, a partial conclusion—the “half argument” of the title—is drawn for further development. (shrink)