Susan Stebbing’s critique of Marie Collins Swabey’s Logic and Nature (Guest post by Joel Katzav)

[This is an invited guest post by Joel Katzav--ES]

Susan Stebbing reviewed Marie Collins Swabey’s Logic and Nature in 1930.[1] According to Stebbing, Logic and Nature’s main purpose is to vindicate the idea that logic can teach us metaphysics and to use logic to teach us metaphysics. In addition, writes Stebbing,

“Swabey is anxious to protest against the metaphysic which appears to be implicit in Behaviourism, and which is here called "Naturalism." The present reviewer is in agreement with this protest. Professor Swabey well says: "Whereas it is the merest platitude to assert that our biological make-up has something to do with the character of our thinking, it is the extremest dogmatism to claim that all thought finally expresses nothing but an activity of adjustment on the part of the organism to its surroundings" (1930, p. 620).

Stebbing’s agreement with Swabey about the rejection of behaviouristic naturalism is the only positive remark Stebbing makes about Swabey’s book. Stebbing could, however, have learnt much from Swabey. To begin with, Stebbing endorsed a version of (non-holistic) verificationism (1933, p. 15) while Swabey presents significant alternatives to, and criticism of, verificationism. One alternative Swabey presents is the kind of holistic naturalism that, due to Willard V. Quine’s appropriation of it, became so influential in undermining logical positivism, along with its verificationism, in the 1950s.

More important, Swabey’s criticism of naturalism is not, contrary to Stebbing, merely a criticism of behaviouristic naturalism. Swabey’s criticism is intended to apply to any view according to which there is no synthetic a priori knowledge, including verificationism and empiricist holism; much of chapter 2 of Logic and Nature and much that follows in the book makes this clear, so much so that one gets the feeling that Stebbing did little more than glance at the chapters following chapter one of Swabey’s book.[2] Like more recent influential critiques of naturalism, Swabey is worried that any position which, with naturalism, does not recognise the existence of synthetic a priori knowledge is doomed to scepticism. So too, she worries that naturalism will end up undermining itself by assuming precisely the kind of non-empirical metaphysics it aims to reject (see here).

Stebbing’s main complaint about Swabey’s book is that it confuses between notions of identity in a way that is obvious and that undermines its arguments. Claims of confusion, however, either miss their target–contrary to Stebbing, for example, Swabey clearly differentiates (1930 p. 15 & p. 17) between (roughly) identity of reference (what she calls ‘analytic identity’) and predication (what she calls ‘synthetic identity’)–or are irrelevant, because the distinctions Stebbing brings up are not needed by Swabey. Let me illustrate this irrelevance using one of the few places in the review where Stebbing engages with Swabey’s arguments, rather than simply dismissing them. Here is Stebbing:

This insufficient analysis of the notion of identity is all the more serious since Professor Swabey attempts to derive the other logical principles from the principle of identity. It must be sufficient here to indicate how Professor Swabey derives the law of non-contradiction from the principle of identity. She says: "If change (A) is itself (A), it cannot be what is not itself (non-A); since, if it could be at once both the same and not the same, both itself and something else, it would apparently cease to be anything definite. By being both change and not-change, it would lose self-reference, since it would violate the law of identity that change cannot change its nature." It is surprising that Professor Swabey fails to realize that this derivation is circular (Stebbing 1930, pp. 621-622).

Stebbing’s criticism turns on a supposed circularity in Swabey’s argument rather than on any confusion about identity. Further, Stebbing appears to be begging the question by assuming classical logic. Her thought appears to be that Swabey is using a classical reductio in deriving the law of non-contradiction from the principle of identity and thus relying on the law of non-contradiction. So, perhaps Stebbing thinks that Swabey is arguing along something like the following lines (where ‘A’ denotes the universal change):                   

1. A = A & ¬(A = A)                [assumption for the purposes of reductio]
2. (A = A)                                  [from 1]
3. ¬(A = A)                                [from 1]
4. ¬ ((A = A)&  ¬ (A = A))      [On the basis of the contradiction between 2 and 3, we deny 1]

Swabey, however, is arguing for one part of classical logic and thus cannot simply be taken to be assuming classical logic. Her Cornell (Hegelian) background should provide further reason for caution on this matter. Indeed, she does not appear to be offering a circular argument. If we stick to her text, she appears to be arguing thus:

1. A = A &  ¬(A = A)
2. ¬ (A = A) --> Absurdity[3]
3. ¬ (A = A)                              [from 1]
4. Absurdity                          [from 2 & 3]
5. ¬ (A = A &  ¬ (A = A))         [on the basis of the principle that whenever our premises lead to Absurdity, we can negate one of the premises]

Stebbing thus fails to understand Swabey’s argument. This too is unfortunate, and not only because it was a missed opportunity to reflect on non-classical logic and its relation to classical logic. Swabey’s strategy, of which the argument just examined is a fragment, appears to be twofold. On the one hand, she aims to argue for ontological claims on the grounds that they are presupposed by certain logical principles. On the other hand, she aims to establish some logical principles on the basis of the absurdity of certain ontological claims, such as that change is not identical with itself. Her goal appears to be a system of mutually supporting ontological and logical principles. This form of rationalist metaphysics is an alternative to the kinds of metaphysics Stebbing considers in arguing for her own analytic approach to metaphysics (see Stebbing 1932). A rationalist alternative was particularly valuable in 1930s America, when rationalists were very few and far between.

Stebbing’s review of Swabey’s work might be set aside as a one-off lapse in judgment. But there is a different way of viewing her review. Stebbing is writing in 1930. This is just a few years after G. E. Moore, who converted Stebbing to analytic philosophy, excluded speculative philosophy from Mind, thus taking the first step to excluding speculative philosophers from ‘reputable’ company (Katzav and Vaesen 2017). Stebbing herself, in helping to found Analysis in 1933, the first Anglophone journal that explicitly excluded speculative philosophy from its pages, was part of a further significant step in the marginalisation of speculative philosophy (Katzav 2018 and here). From this perspective, Stebbing’s review of Swabey can be thought of as part of a broader pattern in which the work of speculative thinkers is not taken seriously, irrespective of its merits. Swabey is one of the many speculative philosophers whose contributions to philosophy are not remembered at least partly because they belonged to the wrong tradition.

 

References

Blanshard, B. (1956) “Logic and Nature. Marie Collins Swabey,” The Journal of Philosophy, 53(16): 509-510.

Katzav, J. (2018) “Analytic philosophy, 1925-1969: emergence, management and nature”, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2018.1450219.

Katzav, J. and Vaesen, K. (2017) 'Pluralism and Peer Review in Philosophy', Philosophers' Imprint, 17(19), pp. 1-20.

Stebbing, S. (1930) “Logic and Nature. By M. C. Swabey, Ph.D.” The Journal of Philosophical Studies, 5(20): 620-622.

Stebbing, S. (1932) “The method of analysis in metaphysics”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 33: 65-94.

Stebbing, S. (1933) “Logical Positivism and Analysis,” Proceedings of the British Academy, pp. 53–87.

Swabey, M. C. (1930) Logic and Nature, New York: New York University Press.

 

[1] Thanks to Guillermo Badia for his help with this post.

[2] This suspicion is strengthened by the observation that more or less everything of substance Stebbing has to say looks like it is taken from the introduction to Swabey’s book and from chapter one. Indeed, the introduction might give the reader the mistaken impression, which Stebbing has, that Swabey only criticises behaviouristic naturalism.

[3] For my claims to work here, Swabey must be assumed not to be identifying ‘  ̴p’ with ‘p à Absurdity’.