Catalyst for Controversy: Paul Carus of Open Court

2. The Philosophy of Monism and Meliorism

CD The Philosophy of Monism and Meliorism "Thought for its own sake is a disease," wrote Paul Carns (1891b, 361). "Thought should always end in the regulation or adjustment ofour behavior toward our surroundings. Ifit does not, it is not the right kind of thought." As he told Edwin N. Lewis (5 Oct. 1897), editor ofthe Milway Master Mechanic, he most valued "the appreciation of a sober minded man who deals with the practical sides oflife.... Both The Open Court and The Monist, although apparently velY theoretical, have very practical aims." The notion of a purely technical philosophy, or one of interest only within the academy, repelled him. "Most of the prohlems which are so vigorously discussed by many philosophers ... are mere sham such as the problem ofpluralism and unity, and such also as the problem ofthe reality ofthe real," he wrote to Seth D. Merton (16 May 1904). "It is scarcely worthwhile to explode these bubbles because they are suited for whiling away a student's time when he attends his philosophical course at the university." This same line ofthought led Carns to compare his adopted home favorably to the Old Wor1d: "Here all meet without pretensions," he told the World's Congress of Philosophy in 1893 (1893b, 11), "and the sage must reply to the incoherent notions of the fool as to his equal. This naturally appears to a European scholar as a humiliation; but by doing so a thinker does not stoop; it does not lower his work; on the contrary, it will only widen his views and deepen his convictions." In the United States, Carns argued, "A philosopher must feel the 12 Monism and Meliorism o 13 pulse ofthe people beat in his own heart, with all the nobility of their aspirations, and with all the errors that sway their minds" (1893,3). For this reason most of Cams's many philosophical writings are more or less popular in style and approach. He restated his views repeatedly over more than a quarter-century, but these restatements were rarely systematic or thorough enough to satisfy professionals in the field. In 1890 Charles Peirce described Cams's Fundamental Problems as containing "the average opinions of thoughtful men to-day.... [A]nd if there be here and there an inconsistency, it only ... adapts it all the better to the need of the public" (1890, 118-19). When Cams proposed that his 1893 Primer of Philosophy would "set the ship ofphilosophy afloat again" (iii), John Dewey in a briefand tactful notice (1895) suggested, "Were the ship of philosophy stranded, I doubt the ability ofthe united efforts of the whole race to get it afloat." Much later, Cams's friend, the poet William Ellery Leonard, praised Carus's lifelong willingness to debate all comers, famous or obscure ("he took any thinking, or honest attempt at thinking, seriously"), but he lamented Carns's tendency to blend popularization and "valuable, original analysis" (Leonard 1919,453). Carus frequently affirmed his willingness to change his mind ifhis adversary could convince him he was wrong. These declarations encouraged many a spirited debate in the pages of The Open Court and The Monist, but his bedrock views remained constant throughout his mature years: that the world is in some sense a unity and not a plurality, that we learn about it by applying reason to our sense experience, and that evolution is moral progress. With one exception (noted below), Carus did not call attention to changes in his point ofview. Nor did he claim to be original in his work. "I do not want to propound a new philosophy of my own but to help in working out philosophy itself, ... one that would be as objective as any branch of the natural sciences" (1909d, 1). 14 o Catalystfor Controversy Later students ofCams's thought have usually followed his lead and treated his writings from 1885 to 1919 as expounding a single, fixed system. (K. S. Shin's discussion of the varying definitions of monism [1973, 76-96] is an exception.) But in fact Cams's philosophical views changed between 1885 (Monism and Meliorism) and 1911 (The Philosophy ofForm) as his rationale, terminology, and subsidiary points evolved. Monism and Meliorism was Cams's first philosophical statement in English and his last such writing before he joined Open Court Publishing Company. In the retrospective bibliography Philosophy as a Science Cams described the book as "a preliminary statement...