FCS Schiller

FCS Schiller, illustration from Slosson, Edwin E. Six Major Prophets . Boston, 1917.

Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller (born August 16, 1864 in Ottensen near Altona , † August 9, 1937 in Los Angeles ) was a British philosopher of German origin and an important exponent of pragmatism .

Schiller grew up in rugby . He studied at Balliol College at the University of Oxford and was also a German teacher at Eton College . After obtaining the Master of Arts, Schiller went to Ithaca from 1893 to 1897 as a graduate student and instructor at Cornell University. From 1897 he returned to Oxford, where he taught as a professor for many years. From 1926 he was periodically visiting lecturer at the University of Southern California . After being appointed professor, he worked continuously in Los Angeles from 1930.

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

Similar to William James, Schiller advocated a subjectivist pragmatism, which he later called humanism because of the justification of the idea of ​​progress and freedom that it incorporated. He turned sharply against the absolute idealism of Francis Herbert Bradley and later against the logical positivism of Bertrand Russell . He represented the thesis of the creation of reality by man. One of its principles was “all thinking is action”. Schiller closely linked his pragmatism with evolutionary theory and was one of the founding members of the English Eugenics Society .

Riddles of the Sphinx

In 1891 Schiller published his first work "Riddles of the Sphinx" (Riddle of the Sphinx) initially anonymously because he feared in a naturalistically dominated time that his metaphysically speculative writing could impair his professional development (Riddles, xi). In this work he criticized naturalism as "pseudometaphysical", which simply ignores the fact that the prerequisite for a naturalistic description of the world is also. Therefore, the naturalist cannot make any statements about the “higher” questions of the world such as free will, consciousness, God, purposes or universals. On the other hand, he also turns against idealism as a nonsensical degeneration of speculative metaphysics. For its part, the latter is not in a position to provide information on the “lower” questions such as the imperfect, change or cosmology. Both paths lead to skepticism and are therefore not suitable for providing a secure basis for knowledge and morality.

In Riddles, Schiller took a critical look at historical examples of abstract metaphysics such as Plato, Zenon, and Hegel. In particular, he accused the Hegelians of failing to deal with facts and reality because of abstractions. Universal ideals and the absolute do not provide assistance in dealing with the imperfect practical world. Hegel's truths do not apply here, but in eternity and independent of time and change. In the world of the imaginary, there is no morally imperfect thing to understand and learn from.

Concrete metaphysics

As an alternative, man needs a method by which he can find his way in both the “higher” and the “lower” side of the world, a method that uses the excellence of both alternatives (Riddles 164/165). Metaphysics must be concrete and systematic and use the results of the sciences. As in the times of Aristotle , metaphysics must be understood as the science of the first principles of the sciences. The subject of such metaphysics is the creation of the world, the origin of life, the explanation of consciousness from the unconscious, emergence or the teleology of evolution (Riddles 205).

Will to believe

His alternative to skepticism, the basis of which was already contained in "Riddle of the Sphinx", was further developed by Schiller after William James' "The Will to Belief" was published in 1897 in "Personal Idealism", in which, among other things, the essay "Axioms as Postulates" is included. Will to Belief is the basis for the fact that humans accept causality, the unity of nature, the concepts of identity, contradiction, the principle of the excluded third party, the concepts of space and time, the goodness of God and other more than axioms of logic that underlie our thinking. These axioms do not arise from evidence, but from human needs. Their confirmation results from the success of the action. This success is to be postulated as the basis for the validity of the axioms. Because the abstractions of metaphysics result from the explanations of the concrete living conditions. Fundamental truths are not abstracted as an end in themselves, but serve the prediction of things in order to enable a prediction for one's own way of life (Humanism, 1903, 104).

Natural bases of judgment

Judgments have no meaning or truth without considering their specific application. The investigation of formal logic without reference to concrete circumstances is a mistake of the same kind that abstract metaphysics makes. Symbols are meaningless if not used in specific situations. Their function is that of tools. The ability to judge is a result of evolution. There was thinking long before there was argument and there was long life before there was thinking. Even in developed life, judgment is rarer than thinking and thinking is rarer than purely expedient behavior. Most behavior results from innate habits, instincts and impulses. Thoughts like reason, reflection, reasoning, judgment are an exception that arises due to disturbances. They are used to adapt to unusual circumstances. The idea of ​​philosophers that man always acts on the basis of thoughts is perverted (Logic for Use, 1929, 197/198).

A statement gets its truth from the fact that it proves itself for someone with a specific purpose. For a statement to have meaning, it is not enough that it is based on an experience. What is necessary is that it is relevant to a person's goals in a particular situation. The phrase “diamonds are hard” only has a certain meaning in one particular context. It can be used when cutting glass, but also in connection with a joke or as an example of a sentence with a certain number of letters. It depends on the context.

Works

• Riddles of the Sphinx (1891), revised edition in 1910
• Personal Idealism (1902), collection of articles, therein: Axioms as Postulates
• 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

Secondary literature

• Abel, Reuben: "The Pragmatic Humanism of FCS Schiller", New York 1955: King's Crown Press
• Winetrout, Kenneth: "FCS Schiller and the Dimensions of Pragmatism", Columbus 1967: Ohio State Univ. Press
• Porrovecchio, Mark: "FCS Schiller and the Dawn of Pragmatism", New York 2011: Lexington Books
• Tamponi, Guido K .: "Homo homini summum bonum. The twofold humanism of FCS Schiller", Frankfurt / M. 2016: Peter Lang

Web links

• Literature by and about FCS Schiller in the catalog of the German National Library