The dialectic of mind: Some thoughts on reason and civility

Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d 1 etudes canadiennes© ~~ . Editor DENIS SMITH Redacteur Associate Editor RALPH HEINTZMAN Redacteur adjoint Editorial Board LEON DION Comite de redaction M. G. HURTIG W. L. MORTON W. F. W. NEVILLE PHILIP STRATFORD T. H. B. SYMONS W. E. TAYLOR MELVILLE H. WATKINS Advisory Board ANTHONY ADAMSON Comite consultatif CLAUDE T. BISSELL DONALD G. CREIGHTON KATHLEEN FENWICK DAVID M. HAYNE JOHN HIRSCH JEAN PALARDY CLAUDE RYAN B. D. SANDWELL RONALD J. THOM The dialectic of mind: some thoughts on reason and civility The continuing discussion of the nature of conservatism which has honoured the pages of this Journal deals with issues of fundamental importance for all thoughtful men, but some of the most significant questions which it raises may be very different than our authors intend or realize. An interested observer may be permitted to comment that the real threat to civilized political life may not come either from an unchecked liberalism or (as the liberals might have it) from a reactionary and irrational conservatism but from something which stands over against them both. It is necessary to consider whether liberalism and conservatism are in some sense allies in a common struggle and whether it is their common stronghold which is now under siege. Journal of Canadian Studies It was the purpose of Professor Morton's article to challenge and to refute by example Professor Grant's assertion that a conservative philosophy is an impossibility, and, while Professor Daly is critical of much of Professor Morton's argument, he is in total agreement with him upon both the possibility and the need to articulate a philosophy of conservatism. In fact, he is, if anything, more vigorous and more urgent in his appeal for such a philosophy. Yet both of 1 these gentlemen might do well to give more serious consideration to Professor Grant's statement, for it is an important one. Professor Morton seems to have taken the warning to mean that it is the nature of the times that makes the task an impossible one. But Grant's meaning is, surely, both more profound and more absolute. He meant, I think, that a conservative philosophy is not merely impossible at this point in time - it is not possible at all. And if such was his meaning, he is certainly right. Part of Professor Grant's distinction is that he is a true philosopher - a lover of wisdom - and consequently knows that there is no such thing as "conservative" philosophy: there is only philosophy itself, in which both liberalism and conservatism are subsumed and transcended. Philosophy is the active search for wisdom by the whole mind, not by some part of the mind: and it is not interested in "conservatism" or "liberalism" but only in truth. The error of Professor Morton, as of Professor Daly, is to confuse with philosophy that which is only a practical stance and to assert as reality that which is only an aspect of reality. The search for a "conservative philosophy" is doomed, because conservatism is a false abstraction: it is the projection into practical or political life of one half - but only one half - of the dialectic of mind. It is the practical side of a permanent and necessary form of the spirit, with which are to be associated all the virtues of reverence, but it has no objective existence apart from that other aspect of the mind with which are to be associated all the virtues of self-assertion and which we know in the life of politics under the name of liberalism. These two aspects of mind can be distinguished, but they cannot be separated in the life of the mind and, therefore, in philosophy. In fact, it is only the harmonious functioning of the two inseparable elements of mind which we call philosophy. Faith and imagination are the foundation of the house of intellect, and if one should be torn from the other then the temple of philosophy would come crashing down. In practical and political life, however, this is not true - or at least it is not wholly true. It is the function of the political process in civilized societies to project upon the public...