Dickinson S. Miller
Encyclopedia
Dickinson S. Miller worked with many world-renowned philosophers, including William James
, George Santayana
, John Dewey
, Edmund Husserl
, and Ludwig Wittgenstein
.
at Clark University
for a year, and then went to Harvard where he was a graduate student under William James
, G. H. Palmer, Josiah Royce
, and Santayana. He received the A.M. from Harvard in 1892.
He then spent a year in Germany studying at Berlin and Halle under Max Dessoir
, Hermann Ebbinghaus
, and Friedrich Paulsen
, earning his Ph.D. with a dissertation on Das Wesen der Erkenntnis und das Irrthums, which was published as "The Meaning of Truth and Error" in The Philosophical Review in 1893.
This article led James to abandon Royce's solution of the knowledge problem in terms of an absolute mind. James recommended Miller to a post at Bryn Mawr College
in 1893, where he was a close friend of Woodrow Wilson
.
In 1899, Miller became a strong critic of James's famous arguments in The Will to Believe that the beneficial effects of a belief somehow increased its "truth." His critical article was "The Will to Believe and the Duty to Doubt."
Miller left Bryn Mawr that year to become an instructor of philosophy at Harvard, where he had a strong and productive collaboration with James. James referred to Miller as "my most penetrating critic and intimate enemy."
In 1904, Miller left Harvard to be a lecturer in philosophy at Columbia and professor in 1911. There he worked with Arthur O. Lovejoy and John Dewey.
Miller retired from academic work after two years at Smith College (1926-26) and went into a "European retirement." He visited Rome at first and then alternated between Florence and Vienna, where he made contact with the "Vienna Circle" of philosophers, including Moritz Schlick
, Otto Neurath
, Rudolf Carnap
, Herbert Feigl
, and others.
Miller challenged a basic principle of the Circle that "no sentence can be admitted to philosophical thought as having a meaning unless it is verifiable in experience." Such a principle, he argued "cuts the ground from under its own feet" because a sentence has to already have meaning before you can apply the test.
In Vienna he met with Ludwig Wittgenstein
who was then loosely associated with the Vienna Circle.
He analyzed the relationship between "could" and "can" in the sense of choosing to do otherwise in the same circumstances
and he claimed that the controversy of free will versus determinism was a waste of energy over a false antithesis. At least some determinism is not a problem for free will but a feature.
The article was titled "Free Will as Involving Determination
and Inconceivable Without It," but it is widely misquoted as "Involving Determinism
." His biographer, Loyd Easton, mistakenly describes it as "an acute example of 'soft determinism' or 'reconciliationism'."
The problem of "determinism" versus free will that William James
was concerned about was the strict causal determines that is better called predeterminism
where every event is determined in a causal chain back to the beginning of time, and there is "but one possible future," as James put it.
Far from "reconciling" free will with this kind of determinism, as David Hume
said that he had done in his "reconciling project,", James proposed the first two-stage model of free will
that denies predeterminism
and accepts absolute chance
as necessary for the generation of alternative possibilities
, which are the source of "ambiguous futures" selected by the determination, but not predetermination, of the will.
A careful reading of Miller/Hobart shows that he is much closer to James's new idea about free will than to Hume's reconciling compatibilism.
, Hobart explicitly does not endorse strict logical or physical determinism
, and he explicitly does endorse the existence of alternative possibilities
, which can depend on absolute chance. He concludes that we can do otherwise in the same circumstances
.
He says:
Here Hobart seems to agree with William James that there are ambiguous futures. One could parse the previous paragraph as supporting the two-stage model of free will - first "free" courses of action present themselves, then an adequately determined "will" chooses between them, in a temporal sequence.
Note that Hobart sees clearly that courses of action present themselves - our thoughts "come to us" - and the will brings the act about - our actions "come from us."
Hobart refers to G. E. Moore's idea that one could have done otherwise
- "if" one had chosen otherwise. But Hobart seems convinced that we have that real power.
Hobart finds fault with the indeterminist's position, but he gives the typical overstatement by a determinist critic, that any chance will be the direct cause of our actions, which of course would clearly be a loss of freedom and responsibility
It is very likely that Hobart has William James in mind as "the indeterminist." If so, despite knowing James very well, he is mistaken about James's position. James would not have denied that our will is an act of determination, consistent with, and in some sense "caused by" our character and values, our habits, and our current feelings and desires. He simply wanted chance to provide alternative possibilities for actions and a break in the causal chain of strict determinism.
Since Hobart accepts alternative possibilities, It is arguable that his analysis is actually consistent with Jamesian free will, properly understood. His title includes "determination
," not determinism
. And he sincerely believes we make free, determining choices:
William James
William James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism...
, George Santayana
George Santayana
George Santayana was a philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. A lifelong Spanish citizen, Santayana was raised and educated in the United States and identified himself as an American. He wrote in English and is generally considered an American man of letters...
, John Dewey
John Dewey
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...
, Edmund Husserl
Edmund Husserl
Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...
, and Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947...
.
Biography
Miller received the A.B. degree in 1889 under George Fullerton at the University of Pennsylvania. He studied psychology under G. Stanley HallG. Stanley Hall
Granville Stanley Hall was a pioneering American psychologist and educator. His interests focused on childhood development and evolutionary theory...
at Clark University
Clark University
Clark University is a private research university and liberal arts college in Worcester, Massachusetts.Founded in 1887, it is the oldest educational institution founded as an all-graduate university. Clark now also educates undergraduates...
for a year, and then went to Harvard where he was a graduate student under William James
William James
William James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism...
, G. H. Palmer, Josiah Royce
Josiah Royce
Josiah Royce was an American objective idealist philosopher.-Life:Royce, born in Grass Valley, California, grew up in pioneer California very soon after the California Gold Rush. He received the B.A...
, and Santayana. He received the A.M. from Harvard in 1892.
He then spent a year in Germany studying at Berlin and Halle under Max Dessoir
Max Dessoir
Max Dessoir was a German philosopher and theorist of aesthetics.Dessoir was born in Berlin. He earned doctorates from the universities of Berlin and Würzburg...
, Hermann Ebbinghaus
Hermann Ebbinghaus
Hermann Ebbinghaus was a German psychologist who pioneered the experimental study of memory, and is known for his discovery of the forgetting curve and the spacing effect. He was also the first person to describe the learning curve...
, and Friedrich Paulsen
Friedrich Paulsen
Friedrich Paulsen was a German philosopher and educator.-Biography:He was born at Langenhorn and educated at Erlangen, Bonn and Berlin, where he became extraordinary professor of philosophy and pedagogy in 1878...
, earning his Ph.D. with a dissertation on Das Wesen der Erkenntnis und das Irrthums, which was published as "The Meaning of Truth and Error" in The Philosophical Review in 1893.
This article led James to abandon Royce's solution of the knowledge problem in terms of an absolute mind. James recommended Miller to a post at Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....
in 1893, where he was a close friend of Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
.
In 1899, Miller became a strong critic of James's famous arguments in The Will to Believe that the beneficial effects of a belief somehow increased its "truth." His critical article was "The Will to Believe and the Duty to Doubt."
Miller left Bryn Mawr that year to become an instructor of philosophy at Harvard, where he had a strong and productive collaboration with James. James referred to Miller as "my most penetrating critic and intimate enemy."
In 1904, Miller left Harvard to be a lecturer in philosophy at Columbia and professor in 1911. There he worked with Arthur O. Lovejoy and John Dewey.
Miller retired from academic work after two years at Smith College (1926-26) and went into a "European retirement." He visited Rome at first and then alternated between Florence and Vienna, where he made contact with the "Vienna Circle" of philosophers, including Moritz Schlick
Moritz Schlick
Friedrich Albert Moritz Schlick was a German philosopher, physicist and the founding father of logical positivism and the Vienna Circle.-Early life and works:...
, Otto Neurath
Otto Neurath
Otto Neurath was an Austrian philosopher of science, sociologist, and political economist...
, Rudolf Carnap
Rudolf Carnap
Rudolf Carnap was an influential German-born philosopher who was active in Europe before 1935 and in the United States thereafter. He was a major member of the Vienna Circle and an advocate of logical positivism....
, Herbert Feigl
Herbert Feigl
Herbert Feigl was an Austrian philosopher and a member of the Vienna Circle.-Biography:The son of a weaver, Feigl was born in Reichenberg , Bohemia, and matriculated at the University of Vienna in 1922...
, and others.
Miller challenged a basic principle of the Circle that "no sentence can be admitted to philosophical thought as having a meaning unless it is verifiable in experience." Such a principle, he argued "cuts the ground from under its own feet" because a sentence has to already have meaning before you can apply the test.
In Vienna he met with Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947...
who was then loosely associated with the Vienna Circle.
Free will as involving determination
In 1934, as Miller left to return for America, he published a landmark article in Mind under the pseudonym R. E. Hobart, one that has led to a great deal of confusion in the relationship between free will and determinism.He analyzed the relationship between "could" and "can" in the sense of choosing to do otherwise in the same circumstances
Do otherwise in the same circumstances
The ability to choose and do otherwise in exactly the same circumstances is one of two criteria considered essential for libertarian free will and for moral responsibility...
and he claimed that the controversy of free will versus determinism was a waste of energy over a false antithesis. At least some determinism is not a problem for free will but a feature.
The article was titled "Free Will as Involving Determination
Self-determination (philosophy)
Self-determination is the idea of a positive freedom, a freedom for actions that we originate, actions that are "up to us." Such acts constitute the essence of free will. This is Mortimer Adler's term, translating ideas from Aristotle and Aquinas...
and Inconceivable Without It," but it is widely misquoted as "Involving Determinism
Determinism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
." His biographer, Loyd Easton, mistakenly describes it as "an acute example of 'soft determinism' or 'reconciliationism'."
The problem of "determinism" versus free will that William James
William James
William James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism...
was concerned about was the strict causal determines that is better called predeterminism
Predeterminism
Predeterminism is the idea that every event is caused, not simply by the immediately prior events, but by a causal chain of events that goes back well before recent events...
where every event is determined in a causal chain back to the beginning of time, and there is "but one possible future," as James put it.
Far from "reconciling" free will with this kind of determinism, as David Hume
David Hume
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
said that he had done in his "reconciling project,", James proposed the first two-stage model of free will
Two-stage model of free will
A two-stage model of free will separates the free stage from the will stage.In the first stage, alternative possibilities for thought and action are generated, in part indeterministically....
that denies predeterminism
Predeterminism
Predeterminism is the idea that every event is caused, not simply by the immediately prior events, but by a causal chain of events that goes back well before recent events...
and accepts absolute chance
Chance
- Philosophy, logic and theology :* Chance * Contingency * Indeterminism* Luck* Probability* Randomness- Places :* Chancé, a commune in Brittany, France* Chance, Kentucky, U.S.* Chance, Maryland, U.S.* Chance, Virginia, U.S....
as necessary for the generation of alternative possibilities
Alternative possibilities
Alternative possibilities for action are one of two criteria considered essential for libertarian free will and for moral responsibility. The other is to the ability to choose and do otherwise in exactly the same circumstances....
, which are the source of "ambiguous futures" selected by the determination, but not predetermination, of the will.
A careful reading of Miller/Hobart shows that he is much closer to James's new idea about free will than to Hume's reconciling compatibilism.
The Mind article
Writing about six years after the discovery of quantum indeterminacyQuantum indeterminacy
Quantum indeterminacy is the apparent necessary incompleteness in the description of a physical system, that has become one of the characteristics of the standard description of quantum physics...
, Hobart explicitly does not endorse strict logical or physical determinism
Determinism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
, and he explicitly does endorse the existence of alternative possibilities
Alternative possibilities
Alternative possibilities for action are one of two criteria considered essential for libertarian free will and for moral responsibility. The other is to the ability to choose and do otherwise in exactly the same circumstances....
, which can depend on absolute chance. He concludes that we can do otherwise in the same circumstances
Do otherwise in the same circumstances
The ability to choose and do otherwise in exactly the same circumstances is one of two criteria considered essential for libertarian free will and for moral responsibility...
.
He says:
I am not maintaining that determinism is true...it is not here affirmed that there are no small exceptions, no slight undetermined swervings, no ingredient of absolute chance.
"We say," I can will this or I can will that, whichever I choose ". Two courses of action present themselves to my mind. I think of their consequences, I look on this picture and on that, one of them commends itself more than the other, and I will an act that brings it about. I knew that I could choose either. That means that I had the power to choose either.
Here Hobart seems to agree with William James that there are ambiguous futures. One could parse the previous paragraph as supporting the two-stage model of free will - first "free" courses of action present themselves, then an adequately determined "will" chooses between them, in a temporal sequence.
Note that Hobart sees clearly that courses of action present themselves - our thoughts "come to us" - and the will brings the act about - our actions "come from us."
Hobart refers to G. E. Moore's idea that one could have done otherwise
Do otherwise in the same circumstances
The ability to choose and do otherwise in exactly the same circumstances is one of two criteria considered essential for libertarian free will and for moral responsibility...
- "if" one had chosen otherwise. But Hobart seems convinced that we have that real power.
Thus it is true, after the act of will, that I could have willed otherwise. It is most natural to add, "if I had wanted to"; but the addition is not required. The point is the meaning of "could". I could have willed whichever way I pleased. I had the power to will otherwise, there was nothing to prevent my doing so, and I should have done so if I had wanted.
Hobart finds fault with the indeterminist's position, but he gives the typical overstatement by a determinist critic, that any chance will be the direct cause of our actions, which of course would clearly be a loss of freedom and responsibility
Indeterminism maintains that we need not be impelled to action by our wishes, that our active will need not be determined by them. Motives "incline without necessitating". We choose amongst the ideas of action before us, but need not choose solely according to the attraction of desire, in however wide a sense that word is used. Our inmost self may rise up in its autonomy and moral dignity, independently of motives, and register its sovereign decree.
Now, in so far as this "interposition of the self" is undetermined, the act is not its act, it does not issue from any concrete continuing self; it is born at the moment, of nothing, hence it expresses no quality; it bursts into being from no source. (p.6)
In proportion as an act of volition starts of itself without cause it is exactly, so far as the freedom of the individual is concerned, as if it had been thrown into his mind from without — "suggested" to him — by a freakish demon. It is exactly like it in this respect, that in neither case does the volition arise from what the man is, cares for or feels allegiance to; it does not come out of him. In proportion as it is undetermined, it is just as if his legs should suddenly spring up and carry him off where he did not prefer to go. Far from constituting freedom, that would mean, in the exact measure in which it took place, the loss of freedom.
It is very likely that Hobart has William James in mind as "the indeterminist." If so, despite knowing James very well, he is mistaken about James's position. James would not have denied that our will is an act of determination, consistent with, and in some sense "caused by" our character and values, our habits, and our current feelings and desires. He simply wanted chance to provide alternative possibilities for actions and a break in the causal chain of strict determinism.
Since Hobart accepts alternative possibilities, It is arguable that his analysis is actually consistent with Jamesian free will, properly understood. His title includes "determination
Self-determination (philosophy)
Self-determination is the idea of a positive freedom, a freedom for actions that we originate, actions that are "up to us." Such acts constitute the essence of free will. This is Mortimer Adler's term, translating ideas from Aristotle and Aquinas...
," not determinism
Determinism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
. And he sincerely believes we make free, determining choices:
In daily life we are all determinists, just as we are all libertarians. We are constantly attributing behaviour to the character, the temperament, the peculiarities of the person and expecting him to behave in certain fashions. The very words of our daily converse, as we have so amply observed, are full of determinism. And we see nothing inconsistent in being aware at the same time that he is free in choosing his course, as we know ourselves to be.