Synthesized answer
James's "present dilemma in philosophy" arises from a conflict between two fundamental approaches to thought and the world [1, 3]. On one hand, there is the "tender-minded" approach, which is often associated with rationalism and intellectualism. This type of philosophy, while it may be called religious, tends to remain remote from concrete facts, joys, and sorrows [3]. It can also be associated with the idea of a world already saved in its entirety, which might be too saccharine [1]. On the other hand, there is the "robustious" or "tough-minded" approach, which is characterized by a loyalty to facts and a willingness to account for them, often associated with empiricism [3].
The dilemma is that these two aspects, the scientific loyalty to facts and the old confidence in human values, often appear "hopelessly separated" [3]. One is faced with the choice between empiricism, which may lack humanism and religion, or a rationalistic philosophy that, while potentially religious, is detached from concrete experience [3]. This leads to an inconsistency and vacillation in one's creed, as people often desire the good things from both sides, wanting both facts and principles, and believing…
Synthesized from the book passages below. Chat with the book on Feynman for follow-up.
From the book
call ourselves monistic pluralists, or free-will determinists, or whatever else may occur to us of a reconciling kind. But as philosophers aiming at clearness and consistency, and feeling the pragmatistic need of squaring truth with truth, the question is forced upon us of frankly adopting either the tender or the robustious type of thought. In particular THIS query has always come home to me: May not the claims of tender-mindedness go too far? May not the notion of a world already saved in toto anyhow, be too saccharine to stand? May not religious optimism be too idyllic? Must ALL be…
pical Rocky Mountain toughs, in philosophy. Most of us have a hankering for the good things on both sides of the line. Facts are good, of course--give us lots of facts. Principles are good--give us plenty of principles. The world is indubitably one if you look at it in one way, but as indubitably is it many, if you look at it in another. It is both one and many--let us adopt a sort of pluralistic monism. Everything of course is necessarily determined, and yet of course our wills are free: a sort of free-will determinism is the true philosophy. The evil of the parts is undeniable; but…
has a certain sweep and dash about it, while the usual theism is more insipid, but both are equally remote and vacuous. What you want is a philosophy that will not only exercise your powers of intellectual abstraction, but that will make some positive connexion with this actual world of finite human lives. You want a system that will combine both things, the scientific loyalty to facts and willingness to take account of them, the spirit of adaptation and accommodation, in short, but also the old confidence in human values and the resultant spontaneity, whether of the religious or of…
that the disjunction is a final one? that only one side can be true? Are a pluralism and monism genuine incompatibles? So that, if the world were really pluralistically constituted, if it really existed distributively and were made up of a lot of eaches, it could only be saved piecemeal and de facto as the result of their behavior, and its epic history in no wise short-circuited by some essential oneness in which the severalness were already 'taken up' beforehand and eternally 'overcome'? If this were so, we should have to choose one philosophy or the other. We could not say 'yes,…
e philosophy of the Scottish school. It is what I meant by the philosophy that has the air of fighting a slow retreat. Between the encroachments of the hegelians and other philosophers of the 'Absolute,' on the one hand, and those of the scientific evolutionists and agnostics, on the other, the men that give us this kind of a philosophy, James Martineau, Professor Bowne, Professor Ladd and others, must feel themselves rather tightly squeezed. Fair-minded and candid as you like, this philosophy is not radical in temper. It is eclectic, a thing of compromises, that seeks a modus vivendi…