Abstract

An attempt is made to show how several major theories of truth, beauty, and goodness and the metaphysical systems that generate them can be harmoniously integrated within a single theory. The root-metaphor theory of Stephen C. Pepper serves as the main guide in this endeavor in view of its clear and comprehensive survey of the concepts and theories involved. ;Eight of Pepper's books are examined for the light they can shed on the problem being investigated. These are as follows: for theories of truth, World Hypotheses and Concept and Quality; for theories of beauty, The Basis of Criticism in the Arts, supplemented by Aesthetic Quality, Principles of Art Appreciation, and The Work of Art; and for theories of goodness, The Sources of Value and Ethics. These are supplemented by references to the writings of other philosophers whose views appear to epitomize the perspectives cited by Pepper. ;The five fundamental metaphysical systems in terms of which Pepper examines the concepts of truth, beauty, and goodness he calls formism, mechanism, contextualism, organicism, and selectivism. Typical proponents of these perspectives who are cited in the present investigation are Plato, Aristotle, and J. L. Austin for formism; J. S. Mill, Santayana, and David Prall for mechanism; William James and John Dewey for contextualism; and Royce, Bosanquet, and Plato for organicism. Selectivism is Pepper's own theory, although he cites Whitehead as a possible forerunner. ;I contend that each of these metaphysical systems has a distinctive perspective on every issue, that of formism being aesthetic, that of mechanism inductive, that of contextualism ethical, that of organicism deductive, and that of selectivism epistemological. I show how each of these perspectives emerges from an analysis of the structure of a purposive act, the root metaphor of selectivism. I call this modified version of selectivism neoselectivism