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A Systematics for Problems of Action

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Wroe Alderson
Wroe Alderson*
Affiliation:
Alderson & Sessions, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
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Extract

Bertrand Russell, in one of his gentler jibes at the pragmatists, says that this school would obviously prefer Othello, the man of action to Hamlet, the man of thought. This figure is singularly inept since Hamlet brought about the death of six people through violent action. That more than equalled the score rolled up by the presumably more active Othello. What Hamlet lacked was not the power to act but an adequate theory of action. Having first attempted to avoid the issue presented by the murder of his father, he is swept up in a gale of violence because of that very attempt at avoidance.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , January 1951 , pp. 16 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1951

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References

1 Bertrand Russell in Twentieth Century Philosophy, page 236, Philosophical Library, N. Y., 1943.

2 Bertrand Russell—History of Western Philosophy, page 792, Simon & Schuster, N. Y., 1945.

3 E. C. Tolman—Purposive Behavior in Animals and Men, page 3, Appleton Century, N. Y., 1932.

4 John Dewey—Logic, The Theory of Inquiry, page 104 and following, Henry Holt, N. Y., 1938.

5 F. C. S. Northrup—The Logic of Science and the Humanities, page 30, McMillan, N. Y., 1947.

6 George H. Mead—The Philosophy of the Act, pages 1–25, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1938.

7 C. West Churchman—The Theory of Experimental Inference, page 173, MacMillan, N. Y., 1948.

8 Julian Huxley—Evolution, The Modern Synthesis, page 263 and following, Harper & Bros., N. Y., 1943.

9 Robert K. Merton—The Role of Applied Social Science in Formation of Policy, page 161, Philosophy of Science, July 1949.

10 John R. Commons—Institutional Economics, pages 336–339, MacMillan, N. Y., 1934.

11 Edgar A. Singer, Jr.—On the Contented Life, page 147, Henry Holt, N. Y., 1936.

12 Chester I. Barnard—The Functions of the Executive, pages 258–284, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1938.