ABSTRACT
SUPPOSE I were to ask 'What is Reason?' (the capital 'R' being deliberate); I fear I may remind my readers of Mr Chandband, who asks, it will be recalled, 'What is this Terewth?'. The present philosophical climate hardly promises a sunny reception, a warm or fertilizing shower of anticipatory applause. How, once again, is Reason in the abstract to be thought of, as against my particular reasons or yours? Not at all, or as little as possible, so many philosophers might tell us; but for grounds which I hope will emerge, that cry of our self-appointed umpires—a cry, as it were, of 'No ball!'—leaves me, as it found me, dissatisfied. Traditionally at least, reason is first thought of as objective, and further as universal and necessary. Now if I, too, call in question the solidity of that traditional answer, it will be to qualify rather than to reject it. For such notions, and most notably the latter two, are to be taken as normative or regulative; thus not unlike Kantian Ideas of Reason. Certainly we are not to expect to find universality and necessity everywhere, so to speak, already achieved, and hence reject out of hand whatever falls short of them and of their high requirements. But far less should we wash our hands of the whole enterprise. I shall begin with the first, namely, objectivity.
