A CASE STUDY
239
tion that because expressions have the same grammatical form, they
refer to the same logical or physical state of affairs. The price of a com–
modity is an objective character. My present choice recognizes it but
doesn't create it. Does it therefore follow that prices have ontic status
prior to, or independently of, the existence of the world, the social sys–
tem, the choices of previous buyers or the use-values of commodities in
a particular culture?
Mr. Vivas' metaphysical theory is actually a hopeless hodgepodge of
fragments from Plato, Hartman, Heidegger, and of certain residues from
Dewey which he has not yet been able to purge from his system.
Why does Mr. VivaS reject naturalism-root and branch? There
are many reasons. One is that naturalism like materialism,
of
which it
is only a shamefaced form, denies that "the powers of the psyche are
distinct from the alleged conditions which are said to cause them," or
that consciousness can be distinguished from what causes it. But this is
the veriest nonsense. How can I fail to
distinguish a
from
b,
if I am
maintaining that
a
is an effect of
b?
What naturalists assert on this point
is that so far no conclusive evidence has been produced which estab–
lishes that the psyche or spirit or soul, defined in terms of observable
properties, exists
separated
from the physiological or cultural conditions
under which it is found in human experience.
Another reason Mr. Vivas gives, incompatible with the first, is
that naturalists cannot explain these phenomena of moral conscious–
ness which they do recognize like the sense of obligation or dedication
or guilt. And it is true that their explanations are not satisfactory to
Mr. Vivas. Nor are their explanations satisfactory to each other. A con–
sider<l!ble part of Mr. Vivas' criticisms of naturalists consists of a sum–
mary of their criticisms of each other. Even if they all agreed Mr. Vivas
would still be in disagreement because in his conception of scientific ex–
planation any attempt to establish the conditions-biological, psychologi–
cal, and social-in which the qualities of moral experience occur,
in–
volves the explaining away or invidious reduction of these qualities.
Values must be present in the antecedent conditions of the processes
out of which they arise. By the same logic he should deny that science
explains anything, even a cold in the head properly, since the condi–
tions of its occurrence are not themselves racked by coughs and sneezes.
We may grant that no situation in which human need, interest,
or emotion enters is value-free. But to infer from this that the ante–
cedently existing conditions out of which the human situation arises
are themselves pervaded by value qualities is like saying that the
pain
