John William Miller
Encyclopedia
John William Miller was an American philosopher in the idealist tradition. His work appears in six published volumes, including The Paradox of Cause (1978) and most recently The Task of Criticism (2006). His principal philosophical ambitions were 1) to reconcile the idealism
of Josiah Royce
and the pragmatism
of William James
and 2) to integrate philosophical thought and historical thought. As testimony to the integrative nature of his thinking, Miller referred to his philosophy as a "historical idealism” and a “naturalistic idealism.”
. He began his undergraduate education at Harvard University
in 1912, transferred to the University of Rochester
for his sophomore and junior years, and then returned to Cambridge, Massachusetts, for his senior year. Miller received his A. B. from Harvard in 1916. At the onset of American involvement in the First World War, Miller declared himself a conscientious objector and served as a volunteer in the ambulance corps in France with Base Hospital 44.
After the war, Miller returned to Harvard to begin graduate studies in philosophy. Among his teachers were philosophical realists such as Ralph Barton Perry
and Edwin Bissell Holt
as well as idealists such as William Ernest Hocking
and Clarence Irving Lewis
. It is still fair to say, however, that that Miller’s strongest philosophical influences dated from the 19th century and were, most prominently, the German idealists Immanuel Kant
, Johann Gottlieb Fichte
, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
. Ralph Waldo Emerson
was also an important influence on the American side. In 1921 Miller received his master's degree and, under the direction of Hocking, went on to compose a work on the fundamental connection among epistemology, semiotics, and ontology. This work, titled "The Definition of the Thing," earned him the doctorate in 1922.
Miller's teaching career began in 1922 with an appointment at Connecticut College
. During this time he married Katherine S. Gisel (1897–1993). In the fall of 1924 he took a position at Williams College
in the Berkshire Mountains of northwest Massachusetts.
in 1937–1938, Miller’s teaching career was spent at Williams College until his retirement in 1960. He served as chair of the philosophy department from 1931 to 1955 and influenced three generations of students. (Miller was often selected by graduating classes as the most influential professor at Williams and twice the college yearbook was dedicated to him.) From 1945 on he was Mark Hopkins Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy, a title inherited from his colleague and predecessor as chair, the critical realist James Bissett Pratt
.
During his early years at Williams, Miller and Katherine raised their two sons, Eugene (born 1925) and Paul (born 1928).
, semiotics, and political philosophy. Perhaps his greatest innovation in the classroom was the introduction of a course in the philosophy of history at a time when positivism
was further separating philosophical reflection from historical thinking.
There was also no separating Miller’s historical idealism from his pedagogical philosophy. He was known to say, "I cannot understand a man unless I take him at his word." Classroom discussion, the civil exchange of ideas, and having a personal stake in each philosophical conversation were essential. For Miller philosophy was a mode of utterance wherein one actually speaks (i.e., expresses himself) and takes responsibility for what is said (i.e., reflects upon himself). Short of making both of these commitments—i.e., to expression and reflection—honest conversation is no more possible than is philosophy. The speech of the classroom serves to highlight the philosophical bases of conversation.
, The American Scholar, and later reprinted in Masters: Portraits of Great Teachers wherein Miller was grouped with educators of renown such as Hannah Arendt
and Morris Raphael Cohen
.) However, because he focused on his teaching and did most of his writing in the context of preparing lecturers and philosophical correspondence, Miller did not focus on formal scholarly publication.
In the 1930s he published two important articles in The Journal of Philosophy: "The Paradox of Cause" (1935) and "Accidents Will Happen" (1937). After these two publications, he presented four public papers: "Freedom as a Characteristic of Man in a Democratic Society" (American Political Science Association
, Chicago, 1938), "History and Humanism" (Harvard Philosophy Club, 1948), "The Midworld" (Harvard Philosophy Club, 1952), and "The Scholar as Man of the World" (Phi Beta Kappa Society, Hobart College
, 1952). This small number of essays and statements made available to public audiences belied the fact that in private Miller was a prodigious writer who was actively at work developing a coherent philosophical system organized around his central concept, the midworld. It would not be until his retirement that he would gather his writings and begin to make his historical idealism known to people other than his students and occasional auditors.
, History as a System and Other Essays Toward a Philosophy of History. Finally, by the late 1970s, Miller gathered a collection of his essays, which were published just before his death under the title The Paradox of Cause and Other Essays.
The philosophy that one finds in The Paradox of Cause and such posthumous works as The Philosophy of History (1981), The Midworld of Symbols and Functioning Objects (1982), and In Defense of the Psychological (1983) is a hybrid. Miller consciously sought a middle route through the oppositions of realism and idealism as well as pragmatism and idealism. It is a synthesis and revision of those contesting positions. For Miller philosophy was not the means of removing strife but, rather, the recognition and thoughtful organization of conflict. "To philosophize," Miller wrote, "is to be in thoughtful control of a problem." One important way of describing his thinking, then, is to say that Miller's philosophical synthesis does not effectively resolve the conflicts of his predecessors but shows the philosophical import of their disputes and the way in which their contests outline what must be ingredient in any worthwhile philosophy. His conception defines philosophy as the activity of criticism
in the Kantian sense of that term—i.e., to be aware of the conditions of one's endeavors.
As stated above, Miller’s philosophy unites philosophical thinking and historical thinking. In doing so he fully integrated concepts of action and symbolism into his epistemology and metaphysics. The fruits of this approach are seen in his ethical and political philosophy.
via an examination of the process of definition
. Here the possibility of “static definition” was attacked—i.e., a definition that has no connection to action and a defined thing that is fundamentally ahistorical. Unless definition is considered in this manner, Miller argued, we cannot make sense of 1) our own participation in the process and the establishment of meaning, and 2) the evolution and constant refinement of our understanding of things in the world. There is a dynamic relationship between the universal and particular, the terms of definition (predicates) and the thing defined.
The process of definition is founded on human action and meaning understood as "meaning for a human actor." At the bottom of definition is, Miller contended, an unending search for local control—i.e., an understanding of oneself and one’s world that was adequate to support a plan of action. Definition thus ties in with pragmatism. But Miller was careful to underscore that his appropriation of pragmatism was not a crude pragmatism of simple means–ends thinking. Rather Miller saw the fundamental practicality of universal ideas and fundamental concepts which provide general order to our world (e.g., mathematics, language) but which are, on their face, not useful in any immediate sense. Definition links together individual actors and universal concepts in an existential dialectic in which meaning is established and revised.
and also one of his most difficult to understand. First it needs to be stated that the midworld of symbols
and what Miller called ‘’functioning objects’’, is part of his answer to the problem of universals
. What are these universals that are part of the process of definition? How do they arise? How do they relate to particulars? Miller’s response to these age-old questions was to say that universals are always embodied and they are always applied (and so made evident) in action. Just so, the idea of space is established in measuring devices like rulers. Instruments such as clocks determine the idea of time. The idea of justice is founded in judicial courts. Rulers, clocks, courts—these are all symbolic objects or practices. They are also functioning objects in the sense that a ruler is only different from another piece of wood in terms of what one does with it; they are symbolic objects that exist in use and in no other way.
As Miller made clear in The Midworld of Symbols and Functioning Objects, the midworld is not a world proper but rather the totality of all functioning objects (understanding object to have enough flexibility to include regularized practices and natural bodies such as the human organism). This open-ended collection of symbols is also not truly between anything. The midworld is not halfway between subjectivity and objectivity, the ideal and the real, or the natural and the artificial. It is more accurate to say that the functioning object is that thing which allows for one to disclose the subjective and the objective; it is not between these two worlds of experience but is in fact their condition of appearance. The symbols of the midworld are the vehicles by which we define ourselves, define our world, and engage in the ongoing process by which those definitions are revised in light of our discoveries about the world and our new demands for local control
, and it is on such terms that we see the unity of epistemology, ontology, and metaphysics
that provides a deep context in which we can grasp what Miller writes regarding definition, action, and symbol.
Miller embraced history in all his works but it is in The Philosophy of History that he drew a close connection between historical thinking and philosophical thinking. He did this in contrast to an ancient tradition (beginning at least with Plato
) which joins philosophy with the timeless. However, as Miller noted, if philosophy is ahistoric then all philosophy can produce are observations. Philosophy cannot be related to or relevant for action. Of course, for proponents of the contemplative life
this was something that recommended the ahistoricism of philosophy. Miller not only questioned the fundamental premises of ahistoric philosophy by arguing that every observation or thought is an action and thus an engagement in history but he also cast doubt on the relevance of a philosophy that does not derive from and speak to our pressing concerns for personal order, meaning, and right action. Because Miller’s philosophy is fundamentally a philosophy of criticism, if we are to grasp the conditions of our endeavors (and thus have self-conscious and responsible lives) then our philosophy must be historical and go to the midworld as the historical career of those very conditions. Philosophy and history not only must come together but also, considered in the appropriate light, are the same.
Democratic Vistas).
The ideal community provides people with the chance to act, the chance to be effective and become historical actors who maintain or revise the conditions of their endeavors. As one can see in The Task of Criticism, in order for that to be so we need to support something not unlike Karl Popper’s
idea of an open society. Here Miller revisited the traditional connection between liberal democratic politics and the scientific community in which free and respectful speech is licensed, formal modes of criticism are supported, and orderly change and development is a key goal. In order to affect that, in both politics and science, Miller maintained that, as noted above, a historical and symbolic conception of rationality has to be endorsed.
Ultimately, for Miller, there is a convergence of historical study and political action. Scholarship and citizenship are two sides of the same coin in that they are two facets of an active and responsible life—i.e., understanding and then engaging with conditions of one’s endeavors.
Idealism
In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...
of 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 the pragmatism
Pragmatism
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition centered on the linking of practice and theory. It describes a process where theory is extracted from practice, and applied back to practice to form what is called intelligent practice...
of 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...
and 2) to integrate philosophical thought and historical thought. As testimony to the integrative nature of his thinking, Miller referred to his philosophy as a "historical idealism” and a “naturalistic idealism.”
Early years and education
John William Miller was born on January 8, 1895 in Rochester, New YorkRochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
. He began his undergraduate education at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
in 1912, transferred to the University of Rochester
University of Rochester
The University of Rochester is a private, nonsectarian, research university in Rochester, New York, United States. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The university has six schools and various interdisciplinary programs.The...
for his sophomore and junior years, and then returned to Cambridge, Massachusetts, for his senior year. Miller received his A. B. from Harvard in 1916. At the onset of American involvement in the First World War, Miller declared himself a conscientious objector and served as a volunteer in the ambulance corps in France with Base Hospital 44.
After the war, Miller returned to Harvard to begin graduate studies in philosophy. Among his teachers were philosophical realists such as Ralph Barton Perry
Ralph Barton Perry
Ralph Barton Perry was an American philosopher.-Career:...
and Edwin Bissell Holt
Edwin Holt
Edwin Bissell Holt was a professor of philosophy and psychology at Harvard from 1901–1918. From 1926–1936 he was a visiting professor of psychology at Princeton University....
as well as idealists such as William Ernest Hocking
William Ernest Hocking
William Ernest Hocking was an American idealist philosopher at Harvard University. He continued the work of his philosophical teacher Josiah Royce in revising idealism to integrate and fit into empiricism, naturalism and pragmatism...
and Clarence Irving Lewis
Clarence Irving Lewis
Clarence Irving Lewis , usually cited as C. I. Lewis, was an American academic philosopher and the founder of conceptual pragmatism. First a noted logician, he later branched into epistemology, and during the last 20 years of his life, he wrote much on ethics.-Early years:Lewis was born in...
. It is still fair to say, however, that that Miller’s strongest philosophical influences dated from the 19th century and were, most prominently, the German idealists Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
, Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte was a German philosopher. He was one of the founding figures of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, a movement that developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Kant...
, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality as a whole revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.Hegel developed a comprehensive...
. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...
was also an important influence on the American side. In 1921 Miller received his master's degree and, under the direction of Hocking, went on to compose a work on the fundamental connection among epistemology, semiotics, and ontology. This work, titled "The Definition of the Thing," earned him the doctorate in 1922.
Miller's teaching career began in 1922 with an appointment at Connecticut College
Connecticut College
Connecticut College is a private liberal arts college located in New London, Connecticut.The college was founded in 1911, as Connecticut College for Women, in response to Wesleyan University closing its doors to women...
. During this time he married Katherine S. Gisel (1897–1993). In the fall of 1924 he took a position at Williams College
Williams College
Williams College is a private liberal arts college located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It was established in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams. Originally a men's college, Williams became co-educational in 1970. Fraternities were also phased out during this...
in the Berkshire Mountains of northwest Massachusetts.
Williams College years
Apart from two summer sessions and a one-year visiting appointment at the University of MinnesotaUniversity of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
in 1937–1938, Miller’s teaching career was spent at Williams College until his retirement in 1960. He served as chair of the philosophy department from 1931 to 1955 and influenced three generations of students. (Miller was often selected by graduating classes as the most influential professor at Williams and twice the college yearbook was dedicated to him.) From 1945 on he was Mark Hopkins Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy, a title inherited from his colleague and predecessor as chair, the critical realist James Bissett Pratt
James Bissett Pratt
James Bissett Pratt was a philosophy teacher at Williams College.He wrote several books.- Writings :* The Psychology of Religious Belief, 1907* What is Pragmatism? 1909* India and its Faiths...
.
During his early years at Williams, Miller and Katherine raised their two sons, Eugene (born 1925) and Paul (born 1928).
Pedagogy
At Williams, Miller taught courses across the whole philosophical curriculum—i.e., epistemology, metaphysics, aestheticsAesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
, semiotics, and political philosophy. Perhaps his greatest innovation in the classroom was the introduction of a course in the philosophy of history at a time when positivism
Positivism
Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....
was further separating philosophical reflection from historical thinking.
There was also no separating Miller’s historical idealism from his pedagogical philosophy. He was known to say, "I cannot understand a man unless I take him at his word." Classroom discussion, the civil exchange of ideas, and having a personal stake in each philosophical conversation were essential. For Miller philosophy was a mode of utterance wherein one actually speaks (i.e., expresses himself) and takes responsibility for what is said (i.e., reflects upon himself). Short of making both of these commitments—i.e., to expression and reflection—honest conversation is no more possible than is philosophy. The speech of the classroom serves to highlight the philosophical bases of conversation.
Influence on writing
It was as a teacher and not as a scholar that Miller was best known initially. Indeed his reputation as a thinker spread via his teaching practice and the modest fame that came to him by means of the accounts of his former students. (See George Brockway’s essay on Miller, first published in the journal of the Phi Beta Kappa SocietyPhi Beta Kappa Society
The Phi Beta Kappa Society is an academic honor society. Its mission is to "celebrate and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences"; and induct "the most outstanding students of arts and sciences at America’s leading colleges and universities." Founded at The College of William and...
, The American Scholar, and later reprinted in Masters: Portraits of Great Teachers wherein Miller was grouped with educators of renown such as Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt was a German American political theorist. She has often been described as a philosopher, although she refused that label on the grounds that philosophy is concerned with "man in the singular." She described herself instead as a political theorist because her work centers on the fact...
and Morris Raphael Cohen
Morris Raphael Cohen
Morris Raphael Cohen was an American philosopher, lawyer and legal scholar who united pragmatism with logical positivism and linguistic analysis. He was father to Felix S. Cohen....
.) However, because he focused on his teaching and did most of his writing in the context of preparing lecturers and philosophical correspondence, Miller did not focus on formal scholarly publication.
In the 1930s he published two important articles in The Journal of Philosophy: "The Paradox of Cause" (1935) and "Accidents Will Happen" (1937). After these two publications, he presented four public papers: "Freedom as a Characteristic of Man in a Democratic Society" (American Political Science Association
American Political Science Association
The American Political Science Association is a professional association of political science students and scholars in the United States. Founded in 1903, it publishes three academic journals...
, Chicago, 1938), "History and Humanism" (Harvard Philosophy Club, 1948), "The Midworld" (Harvard Philosophy Club, 1952), and "The Scholar as Man of the World" (Phi Beta Kappa Society, Hobart College
Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Hobart and William Smith Colleges, located in Geneva, New York, are together a liberal arts college offering Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science and Master of Arts in Teaching degrees. In athletics, however, the two schools compete with separate teams, known as the Hobart Statesmen and the...
, 1952). This small number of essays and statements made available to public audiences belied the fact that in private Miller was a prodigious writer who was actively at work developing a coherent philosophical system organized around his central concept, the midworld. It would not be until his retirement that he would gather his writings and begin to make his historical idealism known to people other than his students and occasional auditors.
Philosophy
Upon his retirement in 1960, Miller remained in Williamstown and continued his practice of philosophical conversation. However, the years of his retirement found Miller faced with the strong encouragement of a handful of former students who urged him to publish the four public addresses just mentioned and some of the many essays that he had penned over the years. In 1961 Miller published "The Ahistoric and the Historic" as an Afterword to a volume of translated essays by José Ortega y GassetJosé Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset was a Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist working during the first half of the 20th century while Spain oscillated between monarchy, republicanism and dictatorship. He was, along with Nietzsche, a proponent of the idea of perspectivism.-Biography:José Ortega y Gasset was...
, History as a System and Other Essays Toward a Philosophy of History. Finally, by the late 1970s, Miller gathered a collection of his essays, which were published just before his death under the title The Paradox of Cause and Other Essays.
The philosophy that one finds in The Paradox of Cause and such posthumous works as The Philosophy of History (1981), The Midworld of Symbols and Functioning Objects (1982), and In Defense of the Psychological (1983) is a hybrid. Miller consciously sought a middle route through the oppositions of realism and idealism as well as pragmatism and idealism. It is a synthesis and revision of those contesting positions. For Miller philosophy was not the means of removing strife but, rather, the recognition and thoughtful organization of conflict. "To philosophize," Miller wrote, "is to be in thoughtful control of a problem." One important way of describing his thinking, then, is to say that Miller's philosophical synthesis does not effectively resolve the conflicts of his predecessors but shows the philosophical import of their disputes and the way in which their contests outline what must be ingredient in any worthwhile philosophy. His conception defines philosophy as the activity of criticism
Critical philosophy
Attributed to Immanuel Kant, the critical philosophy movement sees the primary task of philosophy as criticism rather than justification of knowledge; criticism, for Kant, meant judging as to the possibilities of knowledge before advancing to knowledge itself...
in the Kantian sense of that term—i.e., to be aware of the conditions of one's endeavors.
As stated above, Miller’s philosophy unites philosophical thinking and historical thinking. In doing so he fully integrated concepts of action and symbolism into his epistemology and metaphysics. The fruits of this approach are seen in his ethical and political philosophy.
Definition and action
In his dissertation and subsequent book The Definition of the Thing With Some Notes on Language (1980), Miller tied together epistemology and ontologyOntology
Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...
via an examination of the process of definition
Definition
A definition is a passage that explains the meaning of a term , or a type of thing. The term to be defined is the definiendum. A term may have many different senses or meanings...
. Here the possibility of “static definition” was attacked—i.e., a definition that has no connection to action and a defined thing that is fundamentally ahistorical. Unless definition is considered in this manner, Miller argued, we cannot make sense of 1) our own participation in the process and the establishment of meaning, and 2) the evolution and constant refinement of our understanding of things in the world. There is a dynamic relationship between the universal and particular, the terms of definition (predicates) and the thing defined.
The process of definition is founded on human action and meaning understood as "meaning for a human actor." At the bottom of definition is, Miller contended, an unending search for local control—i.e., an understanding of oneself and one’s world that was adequate to support a plan of action. Definition thus ties in with pragmatism. But Miller was careful to underscore that his appropriation of pragmatism was not a crude pragmatism of simple means–ends thinking. Rather Miller saw the fundamental practicality of universal ideas and fundamental concepts which provide general order to our world (e.g., mathematics, language) but which are, on their face, not useful in any immediate sense. Definition links together individual actors and universal concepts in an existential dialectic in which meaning is established and revised.
Midworld
The midworld was one of Miller’s central ideasIdea
In the most narrow sense, an idea is just whatever is before the mind when one thinks. Very often, ideas are construed as representational images; i.e. images of some object. In other contexts, ideas are taken to be concepts, although abstract concepts do not necessarily appear as images...
and also one of his most difficult to understand. First it needs to be stated that the midworld of symbols
Semiotics
Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes , indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication...
and what Miller called ‘’functioning objects’’, is part of his answer to the problem of universals
Problem of universals
The problem of universals is an ancient problem in metaphysics about whether universals exist. Universals are general or abstract qualities, characteristics, properties, kinds or relations, such as being male/female, solid/liquid/gas or a certain colour, that can be predicated of individuals or...
. What are these universals that are part of the process of definition? How do they arise? How do they relate to particulars? Miller’s response to these age-old questions was to say that universals are always embodied and they are always applied (and so made evident) in action. Just so, the idea of space is established in measuring devices like rulers. Instruments such as clocks determine the idea of time. The idea of justice is founded in judicial courts. Rulers, clocks, courts—these are all symbolic objects or practices. They are also functioning objects in the sense that a ruler is only different from another piece of wood in terms of what one does with it; they are symbolic objects that exist in use and in no other way.
As Miller made clear in The Midworld of Symbols and Functioning Objects, the midworld is not a world proper but rather the totality of all functioning objects (understanding object to have enough flexibility to include regularized practices and natural bodies such as the human organism). This open-ended collection of symbols is also not truly between anything. The midworld is not halfway between subjectivity and objectivity, the ideal and the real, or the natural and the artificial. It is more accurate to say that the functioning object is that thing which allows for one to disclose the subjective and the objective; it is not between these two worlds of experience but is in fact their condition of appearance. The symbols of the midworld are the vehicles by which we define ourselves, define our world, and engage in the ongoing process by which those definitions are revised in light of our discoveries about the world and our new demands for local control
History
Definition is a historical process and the symbols of the midworld have historical careers. The need to generate, maintain, and revise meanings is one way of understanding historyHistory
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
, and it is on such terms that we see the unity of epistemology, ontology, and metaphysics
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
that provides a deep context in which we can grasp what Miller writes regarding definition, action, and symbol.
Miller embraced history in all his works but it is in The Philosophy of History that he drew a close connection between historical thinking and philosophical thinking. He did this in contrast to an ancient tradition (beginning at least with Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
) which joins philosophy with the timeless. However, as Miller noted, if philosophy is ahistoric then all philosophy can produce are observations. Philosophy cannot be related to or relevant for action. Of course, for proponents of the contemplative life
Contemplation
The word contemplation comes from the Latin word contemplatio. Its root is also that of the Latin word templum, a piece of ground consecrated for the taking of auspices, or a building for worship, derived either from Proto-Indo-European base *tem- "to cut", and so a "place reserved or cut out" or...
this was something that recommended the ahistoricism of philosophy. Miller not only questioned the fundamental premises of ahistoric philosophy by arguing that every observation or thought is an action and thus an engagement in history but he also cast doubt on the relevance of a philosophy that does not derive from and speak to our pressing concerns for personal order, meaning, and right action. Because Miller’s philosophy is fundamentally a philosophy of criticism, if we are to grasp the conditions of our endeavors (and thus have self-conscious and responsible lives) then our philosophy must be historical and go to the midworld as the historical career of those very conditions. Philosophy and history not only must come together but also, considered in the appropriate light, are the same.
Ethics and politics
A critical philosophy becomes a political philosophy by virtue of our involvement in a community. Historical and philosophical thought can be individual and the sort of responsibility about which Miller wrote is in an important sense a responsibility of an individual to and for herself. However, the concept of the individual begs its pair in society and political institutions, and so critical ethics must become critical politics. It is in this fashion that Miller’s historical idealism can be understood as a metaphysics of democracy (a term he borrowed from Walt Whitman’sWalt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
Democratic Vistas).
The ideal community provides people with the chance to act, the chance to be effective and become historical actors who maintain or revise the conditions of their endeavors. As one can see in The Task of Criticism, in order for that to be so we need to support something not unlike Karl Popper’s
Karl Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH FRS FBA was an Austro-British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics...
idea of an open society. Here Miller revisited the traditional connection between liberal democratic politics and the scientific community in which free and respectful speech is licensed, formal modes of criticism are supported, and orderly change and development is a key goal. In order to affect that, in both politics and science, Miller maintained that, as noted above, a historical and symbolic conception of rationality has to be endorsed.
Ultimately, for Miller, there is a convergence of historical study and political action. Scholarship and citizenship are two sides of the same coin in that they are two facets of an active and responsible life—i.e., understanding and then engaging with conditions of one’s endeavors.
Final years
While retirement did eventuate in the publication of The Paradox of Cause, Miller passed his latter years quietly, conducting philosophy in the form of conversation and correspondence much as he had during his teaching career. Miller continued to write and clarify his philosophical position right up until his death on December 25, 1978. He was buried in the Westlawn Cemetery just west of the Williams College campus.Essays
- "The Paradox of Cause." The Journal of Philosophy 32 (1935): 169–175.
- "Accidents will Happen." The Journal of Philosophy 34 (1937): 121–131.
- "Motives for Existentialism." Comment (Williamstown, MA) 1 (Spring 1948): 3–5.
- Review of Walter A. Kaufmann's Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist. Williams Alumni Review 43 (1951): 149–150.
- "Afterword: The Ahistoric and the Historic." In José Ortega y Gasset's History as a System and Other Essays: Toward a Philosophy of History, 237–269. Trans. Helene Weyl. New York: W. W. Norton, 1961.
- "History and Case History." The American Scholar 49 (1980): 241–243.
- "For Idealism." Journal of Speculative Philosophy 1 (1987): 260–269.
- "The Owl." Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 24 (1988): 399–407.
- "On Choosing Right and Wrong." Idealistic Studies 21 (1992): 74–78.
Books
- The Paradox of Cause and Other Essays. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 1978.
- The Definition of the Thing with Some Notes on Language. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 1980.
- The Philosophy of History with Reflections and Aphorisms. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 1981.
- The Midworld of Symbols and Functioning Objects. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 1982.
- In Defense of the Psychological. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 1983.
- The Task of Criticism: Essays on Philosophy, History, and Community. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 2005.
Further reading
- Brockway, George. "John William Miller." In Masters: Portraits of Great Teachers, 155–164, ed. Joseph Epstein. New York: Basic Books, 1981.
- Colapietro, Vincent. "Reason, Conflict, and Violence: John William Miller's Conception of Philosophy." Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 25 (1989): 175–190.
- Colapietro, Vincent. The Fateful Shapes of Human Freedom: John William Miller and the Crises of Modernity. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2003.
- Corrington, Robert. "John William Miller and the Ontology of the Midworld." Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 22 (1986): 165–188.
- Diefenbeck, James A. "Acts and Necessity in the Philosophy of John William Miller." In The Philosophy of John William Miller, 43–58, ed. Joseph P. Fell. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1990.
- Fell, Joseph P. "An American Original." The American Scholar 53 (1983–1984): 123–130.
- Fell, Joseph P., ed. The Philosophy of John William Miller. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1990.
- McGandy, Michael J. The Active Life: Miller’s Metaphysics of Democracy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005.
- Stahl, Gary A. "John William Miller and the Midworld of Action." In Human Transactions: The Emergence of Meaning in Time, 69–84. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995.
- Tyman, Stephen. Descrying the Ideal: The Philosophy of John William Miller. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1993.
- Tyman, Stephen. "The Concept of the Act in the Naturalistic Idealism of John William Miller." Journal of Speculative Philosophy 10 (1996): 161–171.