Gotshalk, D. W. Structure and Reality: A Study of First Principles. New York: Greenwood, 1968 [1937]

Abstract

"Philosophers have many concerns, and many aims. But there is a fine phrase in Plato which sums up the philosopher's original purpose: the spectator of all time and all existence. This seems to me still valid as descriptive of the philosopher's primary aim. Philosophy is a venture in comprehensive understanding. Primarily, a philosophy is an attempt to interpret "time and existence" by principles which include all of it, all that is anything. Such principles Aristotle called first principles, and a knowledge of them wisdom. A philosophy, first and foremost, is a study and statement of first principles. The general purpose of this book is to present a considered statement of first principles. The position taken is that there are three such principles: the continuant, the event, and the relation. Every item of the real is a continuant, an event, or a relation, or it is a complex of these, or, it is a possession, a manifestation, or a component of one or of a complex of these, and the whole of the real is an event-continuant system. All that is anything is comprehended by these three principles, which are, in consequence, the logically supreme or prime principles of the real. The argument of the book is developed analytically, then synoptically. The first six chapters are analytic. Each first principle is analyzed, the range of reality denoted by each is indicated, and the problems raised by an analysis of each are described and treated. The final two chapters are synoptic. The scattered results of the analysis are employed to compose a systematic or synoptic view of the real, a view which shows the way the triadic components settle into a systematic whole, and describes the characteristics that the real has in virtue of its organized wholeness. The central aim of this argument is the elucidation and verification of our three prime principles with a view to showing that they compose a precise and inclusive descriptive scheme. Dropping preliminaries, we begin at once with the continuant principle, its denotation and connotation, we explore the range of the real it rules, showing how it rules it, and we pass to similar treatment of the principle of the event and the relation, dwelling most on relation, and so to synopsis. Thus, the central importance of this book is its value as an accurate and systematic treatment of a subject. This is the major value at which the argument explicitly aims. Historical significance, however, is not compatible with a systematic work. To refer to Greek authority, Aristotle considered philosophy to be an accurate and systematic treatment of a subject, yet Aristotle's philosophy is symbolic of certain elements in the prevailing Greek culture. A philosophy is a cultural utterance, related to a particular past and present, in being a systematic work. To suggest the relation of our work to its particular past and present, is the intent of the title, and of the argument of the Appendix. Since the Renaissance, Western philosophy has had two epochs, one emphasizing the principle of permanence, so-called substance, the continuant; the other emphasizing the principle of change, so-called evolution, the event. A new epoch of Western culture appears to be dawning, naturally calling for a new philosophical synthesis. Signs point to the widespread importance, in the culture of this epoch, of the principle of structure, so-called sociality, the relation. The principle emphasized in this book, to which five of the eight chapters are primarily addressed, is this principle of structure, or, the relation. As our title suggests, the clue to reality is structure, and, as our argument claims, all else that is anything, in particular the continuant and the event, are understood as they really are, only in terms of their relation to each other, and as in relation. This congruity between our outlook and a widespread cultural affirmation, was clear to the writer only after completion of the systematic argument. It is understood also that the primary claim of this work, its claim to fidelity and truth, is independent of such a congruity, residing wholly in the degree of logical coherence and empirical adequacy of its descriptive scheme. Yet the congruity between our outlook and this widespread cultural emphasis, upon reflection, is so clear, and seems so natural and inevitable, both growing in a common present out of a common past, that it appears to call for the belief that the present work is a first groping step toward the great philosophical synthesis pertinent to the epoch now ascending. This is the historical significance suggested in the Appendix." - from the Preface