Miller and James on Analysis and Determinism

Miller and James on Analysis and Determinism GEORGE J. GIACAMAN EDWARD H. MADDEN 1. DICKINSON S. MILLER was an "underground" figure who influenced important American philosophers over an amazingly long span of time. He was a student, colleague , and friend of William James and influenced this colorful figure of the Golden Age in several ways, the most important of which, perhaps, was toward an epistemic "natural realism." Through articles published under his own name and under the pseudonym ofR. E. Hobart, he impressed and influenced a number of recent and contemporary analytical philosophers, His article "Free Will as Involving Determination and Inconceivable Without It" has become a classic in agency theory and has been reprinted several times.' Miller engaged in a twenty-year correspondence with C. J. Ducasse, his closest friend in later years, on issues of causality and belief, and this unpublished correspondence is rich in biographical as well as philosophical material. Miller in later life was a recluse and published little. He refused to let Ducasse continue plans for a philosophical celebration in his honor, believing, as he wrote, that he had not "loomed in philosophy" and did not deserve "recognition," that since he had never written a book he had never had a "philosophical career." Ducasse was always reassuring: "I am afraid that your modesty leads you to underestimate your philosophical reputation. That it is based on your articles rather than on a book does not make it any the less real. Lots of people write one or more books that give them no reputation; on the other hand, as Feigl and Sellars perceived, some of the best and most significant work appears as articles in journals ." 2On another occasion Ducasse wrote that "to students whohad the kind of training ... I had, the name of Dickinson Miller was, and remains, that of one of the most acute philosophical thinkers of America. ''3 Those who knew Miller do not need to be told that he remained unconvinced. 1Miller(1868-1963)beganhisteachingcareerat BrynMawrin 1893,the yearafter hisgraduationfrom Harvard , mainlyas a resultof James's effort. Millerleft BrynMawr in 1899to teachat Harvard and later at Columbia . Whileteachingat Columbia, he was ordained a deacon in the EpiscopalChurch, and he also taught apologeticsat the GeneralTheologicalSeminaryin New York City. Later he taught at SmithCollegeand then spenteightyearsin Europe. He visitedsessionsof the ViennaCircle;and FeiglrecallsMilleras an intenselyinteresting and challengingdiscussantin individualconversations.He had conversationswith Wittgensteinin Vienna,but the detailsare unfortunatelyfew. In 1934he returned to Boston, wherehe livedin retirementthe restof hislife,and managedto lectureoccasionally(he wasalwayswelcomeat BrownUniversity)and publisha few articles.See Paul Edwards, ed., The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (NewYork: Macmillanand The Free Press, 1967),s.v. "Miller, Dickinson"; Peter H. Hare and Edward H. Madden, "William James, Dickinson Miller, and C. J. Ducasseon the Ethicsof Belief," Transactions of the C. S. Peirce Society (1968):115-129; and Loyd Easton's introductionto the book cited below. 2 Dueasse to Miller, 19 January 1950, Miller-DucasseCorrespondence, Brown University Library, Providence,R.I. 3Ducasseto Miller, 19 January 1950,Correspondence. [209] 210 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY The recent publication of a volume of Miller's essays, under the title Philosophical Analysis and Human Welfare, edited and introduced by Loyd Easton, is a welcome event that not only provides Miller with a "career" on his own terms but also provides the occasion for evaluating the contributions of this interesting philosopher. 4 His contributii3n to metaphilosophy seems to us particularly interesting , foreshadowing, as it does, later analytic metaphilosophies. In the present paper we will be concerned largely with that aspect of his philosophy and with the determinism issue because it figures heavily in his metaphilosophical discussions. Our way of going will be as follows: we will (1) give an exposition, as faithfully as possible , of Miller's position as it appears in his commemorative articles on George S. Fullerton and William James and in his original articles where he exemplified and occasionally discussed his analytical orientation; (2) give a short exposition of James's "Dilemma of Determinism," which Miller analyzed in detail, in order both to understand his criticism and later to evaluate it; (3) evaluate the adequacy of Miller's analysis of 'analysis'; and (4) evaluate his criticism of James's classic piece...