Decadence and Dr. Joad

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 491, 19 November 1948, Page 12

Decadence and Dr. Joad

DECADENCE: A PHILOSOPHICAL _INQUIRY. By C. E. M. Joad. Faber and Faber. (Our copy through the British Council).

(Reviewed by

Arthur N.

Prior

HE word "decadence" suggests decay, decline, dissolution; but just what is it that is decaying, declining, dissolving, in a "decadent" age, or in "decadent" writers and thinkers? Dr. Joad, in his new book, suggests that a state of decadence is one in which people are losing their grip on a reality outside themselves. It is a sign of decadence, for example, when Koestler writes an article on freewill and determinism without once raising the question as to which of these beliefs accords with reality, confining himself to an examination of the psychological forces which lead men to adopt the one view or the other, The latter is a legitimate field of inquiry; but the article reflects a tendency to make the discussion of a belief’s motivation not a supplement to, but a substitute for, the discussion of its truth. Dr. Joad very properly observes that if the claim of a belief to. be true-is never to be taken seriously, then the psychoanalyst’s claim to give a true account of how we come to believe as we do, cannot be taken seriously either. If all beliefs can be psychoanalysed out of existence, then this must also apply to the beliefs of the psychoanalyst. This is a fair sample of Dr. Joad’s criticism of the inward-turning tendency which he identifies with decadence. It is, indeed, rather more than fair to him -not many of his points are as well made as this one. And when he has made it, he just flits on te his next topic. He does not bother to consider possible answers-for example, that when we attempt to formulate precisely the difference between determinism and freewill as beliefs, we might find that it just cannot be done, and so be forced to conclude that they are ‘not, strictly speaking, beliefs at all, but only conflicting emotional attitudes; in which case a refusal to discuss their truth or falsehood would be quite in order. This is not my own view of the matter; but it is a possibility which a just and thorough philosophical criticism of Koestler is bound to take into account. "Dropping of the object" is Dr. Joad’s summary phrase for the tendency against which he is arguing. "The object" mainly means the object of thought; and to "drop" it is to imagine that we can "just think" without thinking of anything, as if thought were a mere modification of ‘ourselves like feeling. Dr. Joad’s "decadent" in fact, might be alternatively defined as one who attempts to live on the plane of feeling alone. "The object" also means the object of action; and the pursuit of power or speed without considering what we mean to do with our power or where we are hurrying to and what the hurry is, is also given as an instance of "the dropping of the object." But do we never make a genuine discovery that something, e.g., knowledge, which we begin by pursuing for the sake of something else, is worth

es for its own sake too? No doubt . Joad is right in denying this of and speed; ont his formula covers too much. Dr. Joad as in his introduction, of a certain disrespect shown towards himself by "academic philosophers" and »puts it down to their failure

to appreciate the need for philosophical popularisers, or "vulgarisateurs" as he calls them. But perhaps it is rather a legitimate .reaction to his own lack of care and thoroughness.