An Open Letter to Charles HartshorneAuthor(s): JOHN E. SMITHSource: The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, New Series, Vol. 6, No. 4 (1992), pp. 257-258Published by: Penn State University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25670043 .

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JOHN E. SMITH

An Open Letter to Charles Hartshorne

Dear Charles,

This letter is quite obviously a response to your open letter to Carl Sagan in

The Journal of Speculative Philosophy (5:4, 227-32). I think your letter is excellent and, as you know, I have on numerous occasions expressed agreement with you about the philosophical and theological positions you have taken and now reaffirm in your letter. I wish, moreover, to second

your commendation of Professor Sagan for the brilliant way in which he has carried out the task of making scientific knowledge available to the edu cated public. And he has been able to do this without any of that "science made easy for laymen" tone so characteristic of similar attempts in the

past.

Just as you had a particular reason for writing to Professor Sagan, I have such a reason for this letter, or, more accurately, two reasons that are closely connected. In view of your usually, shall I say, confident approach in

philosophical discussion, you seem in your letter to be uncharacteristically acquiescent at two points. First, you follow without question Professor

Sagan in speaking of what he calls "biases" that may limit his insight when, as it turns out, these "biases" represent fairly clearly delineated philosophical positions to which there are alternatives. Should we as philosophers allow that these positions are no more than "biases" and thus fall in step with the old positivist view that the sciences represent all fact while philosophy? with the exception of Positivism itself?is a subjective valuation of things? I do not say that you would accept any such view of philosophy, especially

THE JOURNAL OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY, Vol. VI, No. 4, 1992. Copyright ? 1992 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.

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258 JOHN E. SMITH

since you do maintain that there are important issues not to be resolved by

physics as an empirical science. I am, however, uneasy when you are willing to regard as "biases" three of Sagan's clearly philosophical views?reduc tive materialism, mechanism, and a complete empiricism that, as you say, would make the question of God's existence an empirical rather than a

metaphysical question. Is it perhaps that agreeing to call views "biases" is an ironic way of reminding Professor Sagan that he is engaged in "some

philosophizing of his own"? If so, I then go to my second point. While you are much concerned to

offer your credentials as a scientist, something that is surely to your credit,

you seem not to think that Professor Sagan has any obligation to present his

credentials as a philosopher. I believe that this is a mistake. Scientists do not take their scientific authority with them when they involve themselves in philosophical issues, either inadvertently as is usually the case, or when

they make explicit commentary on the ideas of philosophers. As regards the inadvertant, recall Peirce's comment that the only thing worse than a

scientist with a bad metaphysics is one who does not think he has any

metaphysics at all. As for explicit comment, consider some of the naive comments made by Einstein about Kant's theory of knowledge, or the amateur treatment of philosophy by Piaget in his book about the illusions of

philosophers. The point that I would stress is that there is a discipline in philosophy

which is not commanded by everyone whether scientist or not. You will

recall that Paul Weiss often insisted that it is possible to make "errors" in

philosophical thinking and that is largely because there are good reasons in

support of some alternatives that are lacking in the case of others. Peirce, for example, made out a very good case to show that the nominalism and

positivism supposed to be the philosophy underlying science does not make

it intelligible at all. What is needed instead, he argued, is some form of

realism that can account for real kinds, an order of nature and not just "natural laws," and the real possibilities that make mechanical determin

ism false. I am loath to call philosophical conclusions of this sort "biases" as

if they were no more than matters of personal preference or selective

emphasis. If philosophers themselves don't ask for the credentials of those

who involve themselves in philosophical issues, then we cannot expect

anyone to show any respect for our discipline.

John E. Smith Yale University

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