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As used in metaphysics, it is evident that such phrases have the fascination of great generalizations, but also the dangers of loose metaphors. Without attempting anything like a complete treatment in this paper, I should like to consider briefly four questions bearing upon the subject: (1) What is a metaphysical level? (2) What levels does the world exhibit? (3) How do later levels develop from earlier levels? (4) What are some of the more important applications of the doctrine of levels to the classical problems of philosophy? 1. What is a metaphysical level? A level may be defined as a class of structures or processes which are distinguishable from others as being either higher or lower. The difficulty for metaphysics is in fixing the meanings of the terms "higher" and "lower." These terms are used variously, to denote differences which are spatial, valuational, logical, and developmental. As denoting spatial differences (e.g., "above" and "below") they are obviously inadequate for the more elaborate requirements of metaphysics; if they have any importance here, it is secondary. As denoting valuational differences (e.g., "better" and "worse"), the terms are important for idealists and pragmatists, according to whose metaphysics the world becomes eventually harmonious and intelligible, or increasingly amenable to human control. It is impossible to pass lightly by these strongly held positions; but in order to look back at them from a point of view to be reached later, I shall assume that the valuational differences which might be denoted by the terms "higher" and "lower," although they are indispensable for us, are not intrinsic to other portions of the world, and hence are not entirely adequate for metaphysics. As denoting logical differences (e.g., "more inclusive" and "less inclusive"), the terms "higher" and "lower" are im 1 Read at the twenty-sixth meeting of the Western Division of the American Philosophical Association, April 9, 1925. portant for the neo-realists and critical realists who ascribe metaphysical reality to subsistents and essences, and include among these the logical relations as subtending, if not characterizing, the world of existences. These positions also are difficult to pass by; but in order to look at them from a point of view to be reached later, I shall assume that the logical differences which might be denoted by the terms "higher" and "lower," although they too are indispensable for us, are refinements of epistemology rather than essentials of metaphysics. Assuming, then, for the sake of the argument, that spatial, valuational, and logical meanings of the terms "higher" and "lower" are, as noted above, too limited to be adequate for metaphysics, I would pass to the developmental meaning of the terms. Lloyd Morgan has defined them in accordance with what he calls "involution and dependence." "When two or more kinds of events . . A, B, and C, co-exist in one complex system in such wise that the C kind involves the co-existence of B, and B in like manner involves A, whereas the A-kind does not involve the co-existence of B, nor B that of C, we may speak of C as, in this sense, higher than B, and B than A. . . . I speak of events at any given level in the pyramid of emergent evolution as 'involving' concurrent events at lower levels. . . . But when some new kind of relatedness is supervenient (say at the level of life), the way in which the physical events which are involved run their course is different in virtue of its presencedifferent from what it would have been if life had been absent. I shall say that this new manner in which lower events happen-this touch of novelty in evolutionary advance-depends on the new kind of relatedness."2 It might be said of this construction that whether or not it is top-heavy, its point of view is decidedly that of the upper levels, and that the results of development rather than the process of development are conspicuous. In order to emphasize the process, one might define a metaphysical level as a class of structures existing in relative, but only in relative, independence; distinguishable from others as occurring earlier or later in time, and as being correspondingly simpler or more complex; and (at least within the limits of investigation) observed or inferred to have been produced from structures of earlier and simpler levels, and in turn to produce structures of later and more complex levels. The last point might be made briefly by saying that the various levels are observed or inferred to be in transitive and asymmetrical relations of producers and produced. 2. What levels does the world exhibit? When a level is defined in the sense just indicated, there appear to be differences of opinion 2 C. Lloyd Morgan, Emergent Evolution (1923), p. 15 f. as to what levels are actually found in the world. S. Alexander distinguishes six-Space-Time, primary qualities, matter, secondary qualities, life, and mind and recognizes the possibility of a seventh, or deity. Alexander's criterion for a difference of level is apparently the emergence, in us, of the quality of consciousness from a lower level of complexity which is vital. Not every difference of complexity is a difference of level. If matter, for example, is only a compound of electrons, the atom would not be on a different level of existence from the electron, but as compared with it might be like the more complex forms of life as compared with the unicellular organism, displaying greater complexity of structure, but not of such an order as to lead to the emergence of a new quality. On each level, in fact, there may be variations within that order of existence which exhibit secondary differences so great as to be called in common parlance differences of quality or kind. But only those emergent qualities which are comparable to mind in us mark true differences of level. I am not able to say whether Lloyd Morgan regards each instance of emergence as marking a difference of level; at any rate he holds that salient examples of emergence are afforded in the advent of life, in the advent of mind, and in the advent of reflective thought, but that in the physical world emergence is no less exemplified in the advent of each new kind of atom and of each new kind of molecule. He says that it is beyond the wit of man to number the instances of emergence.5 It is noticeable that these writers, and with them R. W. Sellars,® whatever their differences of opinion concerning subordinate or secondary levels may be, agree in the widespread view that at least the realms of matter, life, and mind, respectively, constitute different levels in the universe. It is noticeable also that in these discussions of a universe of levels, there is marked emphasis upon problems of epistemology. Alexander, as we saw, calls primary qualities and also matter with secondary qualities levels, and distinguishes levels by a criterion for which the emergence of consciousness furnishes the clue. With frequent provisos against misinterpretation of his terminology, he maintains that at each level of the universe the new quality which emerges may be called the mind of that level." Lloyd Morgan and Sellars both emphasize the process by which we know the developing world of naturalism, and link their theories of emergent evolution with their earlier works in the theory of knowledge. It 3 S. Alexander, Space, Time, and Deity (1920), Vol. II, p. 335. 4 Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 45, 54. 5 L. Morgan, op. cit., p. 1. 6 R. W. Sellars, Evolutionary Naturalism (1922), pp. 8, 332. 7 Alexander, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 68. may be added that Alexander and Sellars present elaborate discussions of various ontological categories. One finds that, measured by the work of three of its chief protagonists, the doctrine of levels has been treated in close connection with the epistemological traditions. I am not concerned with a discussion of these positions, so much as I am with an approach to the problem of levels from another angle. My point is not merely that metaphysics should be "emancipated from epistemology"; it is that sometimes even those whose naturalism would help to effect the emancipation have exaggerated the importance of epistemology. In order to win a new approach to the problem of levels, it may be advisable to go outside the literature of philosophy in the more technical sense and to appropriate some material from the sciences, where the categories of epistemology and ontology are, to say the least, not very prominent. As a sample of such material, may I take the following quotation from an article by A. P. Mathews on "The Mechanistic Conception of Life"? "It is generally believed that living matter originated from lifeless; that at first there was a void or formless universe composed of ether or electrons or whatever the primitive stuff may have been and still is; that some of these electrons got arranged somehow into systems, making what we call the atoms of the chemical elements; that those atoms combined slowly into more complex systems, the molecules; that these molecules condensed or aggregated into larger masses, meteors, comets, stars, suns, worlds; that these masses in their turn became arranged into systems, the solar system, great nebulæ, universes, and so on; that on the surface of one of these planets of one of these systems water condensed, amino acids and other organic and inorganic substances were formed, principally by the action of light; that these amino acids condensed or agglomerated into larger groups which may be called micelle or colloid particles; and that finally these micellæ aggregated into still larger groups of cells and unicellular organisms, and these cells aggregated into larger multicellular animals and plants." 8 I am interested in the possibilities which I think are open for attempts to enumerate the metaphysical levels in terms of such current scientific theories, and particularly in attempts to extend the enumeration, as Mathews does not extend it here, beyond the realm of biology and make it include the various levels of mind. It is not possible to be very definite in such an enumeration, or to be sure of the accuracy of some of the assumptions involved; but I think the scientific evidence is becoming clear enough so that one may tentatively consider a world of let us say about twenty-five levels, which I would enumerate somewhat as follows: (1) energies, (2) electrons, 8 A. P. Mathews, "The Mechanistic Conception of Life," Scientia, Vol. 36, p. 243 (1924). |