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| A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z |
According to its etymology, the word "philosophy" (philosophia, fromphilein, to love, andsophia, wisdom) means "the love of wisdom". This sense appears again insapientia, the word used in theMiddle Ages to designate philosophy.
In the early stages of Greek, as of every other, civilization, the boundary line between philosophy and other departments ofhumanknowledge was not sharply defined, and philosophy was understood to mean "every striving towardsknowledge". This sense of the word survives in Herodotus (I, xxx) and Thucydides (II, xl). In the ninth century of our era,Alcuin, employing it in the same sense, says that philosophy is "naturarum inquisitio, rerum humanarum divinarumque cognitio quantum homini possibile est aestimare" — investigation ofnature, and suchknowledge of things human and Divine as is possible forman (P.L., CI, 952).
In its proper acceptation, philosophy does not mean the aggregate of thehumansciences, but "the generalscience of things in theuniverse by their ultimate determinations and reasons"; or again, "the intimateknowledge of the causes and reasons of things", the profoundknowledge of the universal order.
Without here enumerating all the historic definitions of philosophy, some of the most significant may be given.Plato calls it "the acquisition ofknowledge",ktêsis epistêmês (Euthydemus, 288 d).Aristotle, mightier than his master at compressingideas, writes:tên onomazomenên sophian peri ta prôta aitia kai tas archas hupolambanousi pantes — "All men consider philosophy as concerned with first causes and principles" (Metaph., I, i). These notions were perpetuated in the post-Aristotelean schools (Stoicism,Epicureanism,neo-Platonism), with this difference, that theStoics andEpicureans accentuated themoral bearing of philosophy ("Philosophia studium summae virtutis", says Seneca in "Epist.", lxxxix, 7), and theneo-Platonists itsmystical bearing (seesection V below). TheFathers of the Church and the first philosophers of theMiddle Ages seem not to have had a very clearidea of philosophy for reasons which we will develop later on (section IX), but its conception emerges once more in all its purity among the Arabic philosophers at the end of the twelfth century and the masters ofScholasticism in the thirteenth.St. Thomas, adopting theAristoteleanidea, writes: "Sapientia est scientia quae considerat causas primas et universales causas; sapientia causas primas omnium causarum considerat" — Wisdom [i.e. philosophy] is thescience which considers first and universal causes; wisdom considers the first causes of all causes" (InMetaph., I, lect. ii).
In general, modern philosophers may be said to have adopted this way of looking at it.Descartes regards philosophy as wisdom: "Philosophiae voce sapientiae studium denotamus" — "By the term philosophy we denote the pursuit of wisdom" (Princ. philos., preface); and he understands by it "cognitio veritatis per primas suas causas" — "knowledge oftruth by its first causes" (ibid.). For Locke, philosophy is thetrueknowledge of things; for Berkeley, "the study of wisdom andtruth" (Princ.). The many conceptions of philosophy given byKant reduce it to that of ascience of the general principles ofknowledge and of the ultimate objects attainable byknowledge — "Wissenschaft von den letzten Zwecken der menschlichen Vernunft". For the numerous German philosophers who derive their inspiration from his criticism — Fichte,Hegel, Schelling, Schleiermacher, Schopenhauer, and the rest — it is the general teaching ofscience (Wissenschaftslehre). Many contemporary authors regard it as the synthetic theory of the particularsciences: "Philosophy", says Herbert Spencer, "is completely unifiedknowledge" (First Principles, #37). Ostwald has the sameidea. For Wundt, the object of philosophy is "the acquisition of such a general conception of the world and of life as will satisfy the exigencies of thereason and the needs of the heart" — "Gewinnung einer allgemeinen Welt — und Lebensanschauung, welche die Forderungen unserer Vernunft und die Bedurfnisse unseres Gemüths befriedigen soll" (Einleit. in d. Philos., 1901, p. 5). Thisidea of philosophy as the ultimatescience of values (Wert lehre) is emphasized by Windelband, Déring, and others.
The list of conceptions and definitions might be indefinitely prolonged. All of them affirm the eminently synthetic character of philosophy. In the opinion of the present writer, the most exact and comprehensive definition is that ofAristotle. Face to face withnature and with himself,man reflects and endeavours to discover what the world is, and what he is himself. Having made the real the object of studies in detail, each of which constitutesscience (seesection VIII), he is led to a study of the whole, to inquire into the principles or reasons of the totality of things, a study which supplies the answers to the lastWhy's. The lastWhy of all rests upon all that is and all that becomes: it does not apply, as in any one particularscience (e.g. chemistry), to this or that process of becoming, or to this or that being (e.g. the combination of two bodies), but to all being and all becoming. All being has within it its constituent principles, which account for itssubstance (constitutive material and formal causes); all becoming, or change, whether superficial or profound, is brought about by an efficient cause other than its subject; and lastly things and events have their bearings from a finality, or final cause. The harmony of principles, or causes, produces the universal order. And thus philosophy is the profoundknowledge of the universal order, in the sense of having for its object the simplest and most general principles, by means of which all other objects of thought are, in the last resort, explained.
By these principles, saysAristotle, weknow other things, but other things do not suffice to make usknow these principles (dia gar tauta kai ek toutôn t'alla gnôrizetai, all' ou tauta dia tôn hupokeimenôn —Metaph., I). The expressionuniversal order should be understood in the widest sense.Man is one part of it: hence the relations ofman with the world of sense and with itsAuthor belong to the domain of philosophy. Nowman, on the one hand, is the responsible author of these relations, because he is free, but he isobliged bynature itself to reach an aim, which is hismoral end. On the other hand, he has the power of reflecting upon theknowledge which he acquires of all things, and this leads him to study thelogical structure ofscience. Thus philosophicalknowledge leads to philosophical acquaintance with morality andlogic. And hence we have this more comprehensive definition of philosophy: "The profoundknowledge of the universal order, of theduties which that order imposes uponman, and of theknowledge whichman acquires from reality" — "La connaissance approfondie de l'ordre universel, des devoirs qui en résultent pour l'homme et de la science que l'homme acquiert de la réalité" (Mercier, "Logique", 1904, p. 23). — The development of these sameideas under another aspect will be found insection VIII of this article.
Since the universal order falls within the scope of philosophy (which studies only its first principles, not its reasons in detail), philosophy is led to the consideration of all that is: the world,God (or its cause), and man himself (hisnature, origin, operations,moral end, andscientific activities).
It would be out of the question to enumerate here all the methods of dividing philosophy that have been given: we confine ourselves to those which have played a part in history and possess the deepest significance.
Two historical divisions dominate Greek philosophy: thePlatonic and theAristotelean.
(1)Plato divides philosophy intodialectic,physics, andethics. This division is not found inPlato's own writings, and it would be impossible to fit his dialogues into the triple frame, but it corresponds to the spirit of thePlatonic philosophy. According to Zeller, Xenocrates (314 B.C.) hisdisciple, and the leading representative of the Old Academy, was the first to adopt this triadic division, which was destined to go down through the ages (Grundriss d. Geschichte d. griechischen Philosophie, 144), andAristotle follows it in dividing his master's philosophy.Dialectic is thescience of objective reality, i.e., of theIdea (idea eidos), so that byPlatonicdialectic we must understandmetaphysics.Physics is concerned with the manifestations of theIdea, or with the Real, in the sensibleuniverse, to whichPlato attributes no real value independent of that of theIdea.Ethics has for its objecthuman acts.Plato deals withlogic, but has no system oflogic; this was a product ofAristotle's genius.
Plato's classification was taken up by hisschool (the Academy), but it was not long in yielding to the influence ofAristotle's more complete division and according a place tologic. Following the inspirations of the old Academics, theStoics divided philosophy intophysics (the study of the real),logic (the study of the structure ofscience) andmorals (the study ofmoral acts). This classification was perpetuated by theneo-Platonists, who transmitted it to theFathers of the Church, and through them to theMiddle Ages.
(2)Aristotle,Plato's illustriousdisciple, the most didactic, and at the same time the most synthetic,mind of the Greek world, drew up a remarkable scheme of the divisions of philosophy. The philosophicalsciences are divided into theoretic, practical, and poetic, according as their scope is pure speculativeknowledge, or conduct (praxis), or external production (poiêsis). Theoretic philosophy comprises: (a)physics, or the study of corporeal things which are subject to change (achôrista men all' ouk akinêta) (b) mathematics, or the study ofextension, i.e., of a corporeal property not subject to change and considered, byabstraction, apart frommatter (akinêta men ou chôrista d'isôs, all' hôs en hulê); (c)metaphysics, calledtheology, or first philosophy, i.e. the study of being in its unchangeable and (whether naturally or byabstraction) incorporeal determinations (chôrista kau akinêt). Practical philosophy comprisesethics,economics, and politics, the second of these three often merging into the last. Poetic philosophy is concerned in general with the external works conceived byhuman intelligence. To these may conveniently be addedlogic, the vestibule of philosophy, whichAristotle studied at length, and of which he may be called the creator.
TometaphysicsAristotle rightly accords the place ofhonour in the grouping of philosophical studies. He calls it "first philosophy". His classification was taken up by the Peripatetic School and was famous throughout antiquity; it was eclipsed by thePlatonic classification during the Alexandrine period, but it reappeared during theMiddle Ages.
Though the division of philosophy into its branches is not uniform in the first period of theMiddle Ages in the West, i.e. down to the end of the twelfth century, the classifications of this period are mostly akin to thePlatonic division intologic,ethics, andphysics.Aristotle's classification of the theoreticsciences, though made known byBoethius, exerted no influence for the reason that in the earlyMiddle Ages the Westknew nothing ofAristotle except his works onlogic and some fragments of his speculative philosophy (seesection V below). It should be added here that philosophy, reduced at first todialectic, orlogic, and placed as such in theTrivium, was not long in setting itself above theliberal arts.
TheArab philosophers of the twelfth century (Avicenna,Averroes) accepted theAristotelean classification, and when their works — particularly their translations ofAristotle's great original treatises — penetrated into the West, theAristotelean division definitively took its place there. Its coming is heralded by Gundissalinus (seesection XII), one of the Toletan translators ofAristotle, and author of a treatise, "De divisione philosophiae", which was imitated by Michael Scott andRobert Kilwardby.St. Thomas did no more than adopt it and give it a precisescientific form. Later on we shall see that, conformably with themedieval notion ofsapientia, to each part of philosophy corresponds the preliminary study of a group of specialsciences. The general scheme of the division of philosophy in the thirteenth century, withSt. Thomas's commentary on it, is as follows:
There are as many parts of philosophy as there are distinct domains in the order submitted to the philosopher's reflection. Now there is an order which the intelligence does not form but only considers; such is the order realized innature. Another order, the practical, is formed either by the acts of our intelligence or by the acts of our will, or by the application of those acts to external things in the arts: e.g., the division of practical philosophy intologic,moral philosophy, andæsthetics, or the philosophy of the arts ("Ad philosophiam naturalem pertinet considerare ordinem rerum quem ratio humana considerat sed non facit; ita quod sub naturali philosophia comprehendamus et metaphysicam. Ordo autem quem ratio considerando facit in proprio actu, pertinet ad rationalem philosophiam, cujus est considerare ordinem partium orationis ad invicem et ordinem principiorum ad invicem et ad conclusiones. Ordo autem actionum voluntariarum pertinet ad considerationem moralis philosophiae. Ordo autem quem ratio considerando facit in rebus exterioribus per rationem humanam pertinet ad artes mechanicas.") To natural philosophy pertains the consideration of the order of things whichhumanreason considers but does not create — just as we includemetaphysics also under natural philosophy. But the order whichreason creates of its own act by consideration pertains to rational philosophy, the office of which is to consider the order of the parts of speech with reference to one another and the order of the principles with reference to one another and to the conclusions. The order of voluntary actions pertains to the consideration ofmoral philosophy, while the order which thereason creates in external things through thehumanreason pertains to the mechanical arts. — In "X Ethic. ad Nic.", I, lect. i.
The philosophy ofnature, or speculative philosophy, is divided intometaphysics, mathematics, andphysics, according to the three stages traversed by the intelligence in its effort to attain a synthetic comprehension of the universal order, by abstracting from movement (physics), intelligiblequantity (mathematics), being (metaphysics) (In lib. Boeth. de Trinitate, Q. v., a. 1). In this classification it is to be noted that,man being one element of the world of sense,psychology ranks as a part ofphysics.
TheScholastic classification may be said, generally speaking, to have lasted, with some exceptions, until the seventeenth century. Beginning withDescartes, we find a multitude of classifications arising, differing in the principles which inspire them.Kant, for instance, distinguishesmetaphysics,moral philosophy, religion, and anthropology. The most widely accepted scheme, that which still governs the division of the branches of philosophy in teaching, is due to Wolff (1679-1755), adisciple ofLeibniz, who has been called the educator ofGermany in the eighteenth century. This scheme is as follows:
Wolff broke the ties binding the particularsciences to philosophy, and placed them by themselves; in his view philosophy must remain purely rational. It is easy to see that the members of Wolff's scheme are found in theAristotelean classification, whereintheodicy is a chapter ofmetaphysics andpsychology a chapter ofphysics. It may even be said that the Greek classification is better than Wolff's in regard to speculative philosophy, where the ancients were guided by the formal object of the study — i.e. by the degree ofabstraction to which the wholeuniverse is subjected, while the moderns always look at the material object — i.e., the three categories of being, which it is possible to study,God, the world of sense, andman.
The impulse received by philosophy during the last half-century gave rise to new philosophicalsciences, in the sense that various branches have been detached from the main stems. Inpsychology this phenomenon has been remarkable: criteriology, orepistemology (the study of the certitude ofknowledge) has developed into a special study. Other branches which have formed themselves into newpsychological sciences are: physiologicalpsychology or the study of the physiological concomitant of psychic activities; didactics, or thescience of teaching; pedagogy, or thescience ofeducation; collectivepsychology and thepsychology of people (Volkerpsychologie), studying the psychic phenomena observable in human groups as such, and in the different races. An important section oflogic (called also noetic, or canonic) is tending to sever itself from the main body, viz., methodology, which studies the speciallogical formation of varioussciences. Onmoral philosophy, in the wide sense, have been grafted the philosophy oflaw, the philosophy ofsociety, or social philosophy (which is much the same associology), and the philosophies of religion and of history.
From what has been said above it is evident that philosophy is beset by a great number of questions. It would not be possible here to enumerate all those questions, much less to detail the divers solutions which have been given to them. The solution of a philosophic question is called a philosophic doctrine or theory. A philosophic system (fromsunistêmi, put together) is a complete and organized group of solutions. It is not an incoherent assemblage or an encyclopedic amalgamation of such solutions; it is dominated by an organic unity. Only those philosophic systems which are constructed conformably with the exigencies of organic unity are really powerful: such are the systems of the Upanishads, ofAristotle, ofneo-Platonism, ofScholasticism, ofLeibniz,Kant and Hume. So that one or several theories do not constitute a system; but some theories, i.e. answers to a philosophic question, are important enough to determine the solution of other important problems of a system. The scope of this section is to indicate some of these theories.
Are there many beings distinct in their reality, with one Supreme Being,God at the summit of the hierarchy; or is there but one reality (monas, hencemonism), one All-God (pan-theos) of whom eachindividual is but a member or fragment (SubstantialisticPantheism), or else a force, or energy (DynamicPantheism)? Here we have an important question ofmetaphysics the solution of which reacts upon all other domains of philosophy. The system ofAristotle, of theScholastics, and ofLeibniz are Pluralistic and Theistic; the Indian,neo-Platonic, andHegelian areMonistic.Monism is a fascinating explanation of the real, but it only postpones the difficulties which itimagines itself to be solving (e.g. the difficulty of the interaction of things), to say nothing of the objection, from thehuman point of view, that it runs counter to our most deep-rooted sentiments.
Does being, whether one or many, possess its ownlife, independent of ourmind, so that to be known by us is onlyaccident to being, as in the objective system ofmetaphysics (e.g.Aristotle, theScholastics,Spinoza)? Or is being no other reality than themental and subjective presence which it acquires in our representation of it as in the Subjective system (e.g. Hume)? It is in this sense that the "Revue de métaphysique et de morale" (see bibliography) uses the termmetaphysics in its title. Subjectivism cannot explain the passivity of ourmental representations, which we do not draw out of ourselves, and which thereforeoblige us to infer the reality of a non-ego.
Is all reality a flux of phenomena (Heraclitus, Berkeley, Hume, Taine), or does the manifestation appear upon a basis, orsubstance, which manifests itself, and does the phenomenon demand a noumenon (theScholastics)? Without an underlyingsubstance, which we onlyknow through the medium of the phenomenon, certain realities, as walking, talking, are inexplicable, and such facts asmemory become absurd.
Natural bodies are considered by some to be aggregations of homogeneous particles ofmatter (atoms) receiving a movement which is extrinsic to them, so that these bodies differ only in the number and arrangement of theiratoms (theAtomism, orMechanism, of Democritus,Descartes, and Hobbes). Others reduce them to specific, unextended, immaterial forces, of whichextension is only the superficial manifestation (Leibniz). Between the two is ModifiedDynamism (Aristotle), which distinguishes in bodies animmanent specific principle (form) and an indeterminate element (matter) which is the source of limitation andextension. This theory accounts for the specific characters of the entities in question as well as for the reality of theirextension inspace.
That everything real is material, that whatever might be immaterial would be unreal, such is the cardinaldoctrine ofMaterialism (theStoics, Hobbes, De Lamettrie). ContemporaryMaterialism is less outspoken: it is inspired by aPositivist ideology (seesection VI), and asserts that, if anything supra-material exists, it is unknowable (Agnosticism, froma andgnôsis,knowledge; Spencer, Huxley).Spiritualism teaches that incorporeal, or immaterial, beings exist or that they are possible (Plato,Aristotle,St. Augustine, theScholastics,Descartes,Leibniz). Some have even asserted that onlyspirits exist: Berkeley, Fichte, andHegel are exaggeratedSpiritualists. Thetruth is that there are bodies andspirits; among the latter we are acquainted (though less well than with bodies) with thenature of oursoul, which is revealed by thenature of our immaterial acts, and with thenature of God, theinfinite intelligence, whoseexistence is demonstrated by the veryexistence of finite things. Side by side with these solutions relating to the problems of the real, there is another group of solutions, not less influential in the orientation of a system, and relating to psychical problems or those of thehuman ego.
These are the opposite poles of the ideogenetic question, the question of the origin of ourknowledge. For Sensualism the only source ofhumanknowledge is sensation: everything reduces to transformed sensations. This theory, long ago put forward in Greek philosophy (Stoicism,Epicureanism), was developed to the full by the English Sensualists (Locke, Berkeley, Hume) and the English Associationists (Brown, Hartley, Priestley); its modern form isPositivism (John Stuart Mill, Huxley, Spencer, Comte, Taine,Littré etc.). Were this theorytrue, it would follow that we canknow only what falls under our senses, and therefore cannot pronounce upon theexistence or non-existence, the reality or unreality, of the super-sensible.Positivism is morelogical thanMaterialism. In theNew World, the termAgnosticism has been very happily employed to indicate this attitude of reserve towards the super-sensible.Rationalism (fromratio,reason), orSpiritualism, establishes theexistence in us of concepts higher than sensations, i.e. of abstract and general concepts (Plato,Aristotle,St. Augustine, theScholastics,Descartes,Leibniz,Kant, Cousin etc.). IdeologicSpiritualism has won the adherence ofhumanity's greatest thinkers. Upon the spirituality, or immateriality, of our highermental operations is based theproof of the spirituality of the principle from which they proceed and, hence, of theimmortality of thesoul.
So many answers have been given to the question whetherman can attaintruth, and what is the foundation of certitude, that we will not attempt to enumerate them all.Scepticism declaresreason incapable of arriving at thetruth, and holds certitude to be a purely subjective affair (Sextus Empiricus, Ænesidemus). Dogmatism asserts thatman can attain totruth, and that, in measure to be further determined, our cognitions arecertain. The motive of certitude is, for theTraditionalists, aDivine revelation, for the Scotch School (Reid) it is an inclination ofnature to affirm the principles ofcommon sense; it is an irrational, but social,necessity of admitting certain principles for practical dogmatism (Balfour in his "Foundations of Belief" speaks of "non-rational impulse", while Mallock holds that "certitude is found to be the child, not ofreason but ofcustom" andBrunetière writes about "the bankruptcy ofscience and the need ofbelief"); it is an affective sentiment, anecessity of wishing that certain things may be verities (Voluntarism;Kant's Moral Dogmatism), or the fact of living certain verities (contemporaryPragmatism andHumanism, William James, Schiller). But for others — and this is the theory which we accept — the motive of certitude is the very evidence of the connection which appears between the predicate and the subject of a proposition, an evidence which themind perceives, but which it does not create (Moderate Dogmatism). Lastly for Criticism, which is theKantian solution of the problem ofknowledge, evidence is created by themind by means of the structural functions with which everyhumanintellect is furnished (the categories of the understanding). In conformity with these functions we connect the impressions of the senses and construct the world. Knowledge, therefore, is valid only for the world as represented to themind.Kantian Criticism ends in excessiveIdealism, which is also called Subjectivism orPhenomenalism, and according to which themind draws all its representations out of itself, both the sensory impressions and the categories which connect them: the world becomes amental poem, the object is created by the subject as representation (Fichte, Schelling,Hegel).
Nominalism, Realism, and Conceptualism are various answers to the question of the real objectivity of our predications, or of the relation of fidelity existing between our general representations and the external world.
Has every phenomenon or fact its adequate cause in an antecedent phenomenon or fact (CosmicDeterminism)? And, in respect to acts of the will, are they likewise determined in all their constituent elements (MoralDeterminism,Stoicism,Spinoza)? If so, then liberty disappears, and with it human responsibility,merit and demerit. Or, on the contrary, is there a category of volitions which are not necessitated, and which depend upon the discretionary power of the will to act or not to act and in acting to follow freely chosen direction? Does liberty exist? MostSpiritualists of all schools have adopted a libertarian philosophy, holding that liberty alone gives themoral life an acceptable meaning; by various arguments they have confirmed the testimony ofconscience and the data of commonconsent. In physicalnaturecausation anddeterminism rule; in themoral life, liberty. Others, by no means numerous, have even pretended to discover cases of indeterminism in physicalnature (the so-called Contingentist theories, e.g. Boutroux).
What constitutes the foundation of morality in our actions? Pleasure or utility say some, personal or egoistic pleasure (Egoism — Hobbes,Bentham, and "the arithmetic of pleasure"); or again, in the pleasure and utility of all (Altruism — John Stuart Mill). Others hold that morality consists in the performance ofduty forduty's sake, the observance oflaw because it islaw, independently of personal profit (the Formalism of theStoics and ofKant). According to anotherdoctrine, which in our opinion is more correct, utility, or personal advantage, is not incompatible withduty, but the source of theobligation to act is in the lastanalysis, as the very exigencies of ournature tell us, the ordinance ofGod.
Method (meth' hodos) means a path taken to reach some objective point. By philosophical method is understood the path leading to philosophy, which, again, may mean either the process employed in the construction of a philosophy (constructive method, method of invention), or the way of teaching philosophy (method of teaching, didactic method). We will deal here with the former of these two senses; the latter will be treated insection XI. Three methods can be, and have been, applied to the construction of philosophy.
The method of allEmpiric philosophers is to observe facts, accumulate them, and coordinate them. Pushed to its ultimate consequences, theempirical method refuses to rise beyond observed and observable fact; it abstains from investigating anything that is absolute. It is found among theMaterialists, ancient and modern, and is most unreservedly applied in contemporaryPositivism. Comte opposes the "positive mode of thinking", based solely upon observation, to thetheological andmetaphysical modes. For Mill, Huxley, Bain, Spencer, there is not one philosophical proposition but is the product, pure and simple, of experience: what we take for a generalidea is an aggregate of sensations; a judgment is the union of two sensations; a syllogism, the passage from particular to particular (Mill, "A System of Logic, Rational and Inductive", ed. Lubbock, 1892; Bain, "Logic", New York, 1874). Mathematical propositions, fundamental axioms such as a = a, the principle of contradiction, the principle ofcausality are only "generalizations from facts of experience" (Mill, op. cit., vii, #5). According to this author, what webelieve to be superior to experience in the enunciation ofscientific laws is derived from our subjective incapacity to conceive its contradictory; according to Spencer, this inconceivability of the negation is developed byheredity.
Applied in an exaggerated and exclusive fashion, the experimental method mutilates facts, since it is powerless to ascend to the causes and thelaws which govern facts. It suppresses the character of objectivenecessity which is inherent inscientific judgments, and reduces them to collective formulae of facts observed in the past. It forbids our asserting, e.g., that the men who will be born after us will be subject to death, seeing that all certitude rests on experience, and that by mere observation we cannot reach the unchangeablenature of things. Theempirical method, left to its own resources, checks the upward movement of themind towards the causes or object of the phenomena which confront it.
At the opposite pole to the preceding, thedeductive method starts from very general principles, from higher causes, to descend (Latindeducere, to lead down) to more and more complex relations and to facts. The dream of the Deductionist is to take as the point of departure anintuition of theAbsolute, of the Supreme Reality — for the Theists,God; for theMonists, the Universal Being — and to draw from thisintuition the syntheticknowledge of all that depends upon it in theuniverse, in conformity with themetaphysical scale of the real.
Plato is the father ofdeductive philosophy: he starts from the world ofIdeas, and from theIdea of theSovereign Good, and he wouldknow the reality of the world of sense only in theIdeas of which it is the reflection.St. Augustine, too, finds his satisfaction in studying theuniverse, and the least of the beings which compose it, only in a syntheticcontemplation ofGod, the exemplary, creative, and final cause of all things. So, too, theMiddle Ages attached great importance to thedeductive method. "I propose", writesBoethius, "to buildscience by means of concepts and maxims, as is done in mathematics."Anselm of Canterbury draws from theidea ofGod, not only theproof of the realexistence of aninfinite being, but also a group of theorems onHis attributes andHis relations with the world. Two centuries beforeAnselm,Scotus Eriugena, the father of anti-Scholasticism, is the completest type of the Deductionist: hismetaphysics is one long description of the Divine Odyssey, inspired by theneo-Platonic,monistic conception of the descent of the One in its successive generations. And, on the very threshold of the thirteenth century,Alain de Lille would apply to philosophy a mathematical methodology. In the thirteenth centuryRaymond Lullybelieved that he had found the secret of "the Great Art" (ars magna), a sort of syllogism-machine, built of general tabulations ofideas, the combination of which would give the solution of any question whatsoever.Descartes,Spinoza, andLeibniz are Deductionists: they would construct philosophy after the manner of geometry (more geometrico), linking the most special and complicated theorems to some very simple axioms. The same tendency appears among theOntologists and the post-KantianPantheists inGermany (Fichte, Schelling,Hegel), who base their philosophy upon anintuition of theAbsolute Being.
Thedeductive philosophers generally profess to disdain thesciences of observation. Their great fault is the compromising of fact, bending it to a preconceived explanation or theory assumeda priori, whereas the observation of the fact ought to precede the assignment of its cause or of its adequate reason. This defect in thedeductive method appears glaringly in a youthful work ofLeibniz's, "Specimen demonstrationum politicarum pro rege Polonorum eligendo", published anonymously in 1669, where he demonstrates by geometrical methods (more geometrico), in sixty propositions, that the Count Palatine of Neuburg ought to be elected to the Polish Throne.
This combination ofanalysis and synthesis, of observation anddeduction, is the only method appropriate to philosophy. Indeed, since it undertakes to furnish a general explanation of the universal order (seesection I), philosophy ought to begin with complex effects, facts known by observation, before attempting to include them in one comprehensive explanation of theuniverse. This is manifest inpsychology, where we begin with a careful examination of activities, notably of the phenomena of sense, of intelligence, and ofappetite; incosmology, where we observe the series of changes, superficial and profound, of bodies; inmoral philosophy, which sets out from the observation ofmoral facts; intheodicy, where we interrogate religiousbeliefs and feelings; even inmetaphysics, the starting-point of which is really existing being.
But observation andanalysis once completed, the work of synthesis begins. We must pass onward to a syntheticpsychology that shall enable us to comprehend the destinies ofman's vital principle; to acosmology that shall explain the constitution of bodies, their changes, and the stability of thelaws which govern them; to a syntheticmoral philosophy establishing the end ofman and the ultimate ground ofduty; to atheodicy anddeductivemetaphysics that shall examine theattributes of God and the fundamental conceptions of all being.
As a whole and in each of its divisions, philosophy applies the analytic-synthetic method. Its ideal would be to give an account of theuniverse and ofman by a syntheticknowledge ofGod, upon whom all reality depends. This panoramic view — the eagle's view of things — has allured all the great geniuses.St. Thomas expresses himself admirably on this syntheticknowledge of theuniverse and its first cause. The analytico-synthetic process is the method, not only of philosophy, but of everyscience, for it is thenatural law of thought, the proper function of which is unified and orderlyknowledge. "Sapientis est ordinare."Aristotle, St. Thomas,Pascal, Newton,Pasteur, thus understood the method of thesciences. Men like Helmholtz and Wundt adopted synthetic views after doing analytical work. Even thePositivists aremetaphysicians, though they do notknow it or wish it. Does not Herbert Spencer call his philosophy synthetic? and does he not, by reasoning, pass beyond that domain of the "observable" within which he professes to confine himself?
Among the many peoples who have covered the globe philosophic culture appears in two groups: theSemitic and the Indo-European, to which may be added theEgyptians and the Chinese. In theSemitic group (Arabs,Babylonians,Assyrians, Aramaeans, Chaldeans) theArabs are the most important; nevertheless, their part becomes insignificant when compared with theintellectual life of the Indo-Europeans. Among the latter, philosophic life appears successively in various ethnic divisions, and the succession forms the great periods into which the history of philosophy is divided; first, among the people ofIndia (since 1500 B.C.); then among the Greeks and the Romans (sixth century B.C. to sixth century of our era); again, much later, among the peoples of Central and NorthernEurope.
The philosophy ofIndia is recorded principally in the sacred books of theVeda, for it has always been closely united with religion. Its numerous poetic and religious productions carry within themselves achronology which enables us to assign them to three periods.
(1) The Period of the Hymns of the Rig Veda (1500-1000 B.C.)
This is the most ancient monument of Indo-Germanic civilization; in it may be seen the progressive appearance of the fundamental theory that a single Being exists under a thousand forms in the multiplied phenomena of theuniverse (Monism).
(2) The Period of the Brahmans (1000-500 B.C.)
This is the age ofBrahminical civilization. The theory of the one Being remains, but little by little the concrete andanthropomorphicideas of the one Being are replaced by the doctrine that the basis of all things is in oneself (âtman).PsychologicalMonism appears in its entirety in the Upanishads: the absolute and adequate identity of the Ego — which is the constitutive basis of ourindividuality (âtman) — and of all things, with Brahman, theeternal being exalted abovetime,space,number, and change, the generating principle of all things in which all things are finally reabsorbed — such the fundamental theme to be found in the Upanishad under a thousand variations of form. To arrive at the âtman, we must not stop at empirical reality which is multiple and cognizable; we must pierce this husk, penetrate to the unknowable and ineffable superessence, and identify ourselves with it in an unconscious unity.
(3) The Post-Vedic or Sanskrit, Period (since 500 B.C.)
From the germs of theories contained in the Upanishad a series of systems spring up, orthodox or heterodox. Of the orthodox systems, Vedanta is the most interesting; in it we find the principles of the Upanishads developed in an integral philosophy which comprisemetaphysics,cosmology,psychology, andethics (transmigration,metempsychosis). Among the systems not in harmony with the Vedic dogmas, the most celebrated isBuddhism, a kind ofPessimism which teaches liberation from pain in a state of unconscious repose, or an extinction ofpersonality (Nirvâna).Buddhism spread inChina, where it lives side by side with the doctrines ofLao Tse and that ofConfucius. It is evident that even the systems which are not in harmony with theVeda are permeated with religiousideas.
This philosophy, which occupied six centuries before, and six after,Christ, may be divided into four periods, corresponding with the succession of the principal lines of research (1) From Thales of Miletus toSocrates (seventh to fifth centuries B.C. — preoccupied withcosmology) (2)Socrates,Plato, andAristotle (fifth to fourth centuries B.C. —psychology); (3) From the death ofAristotle to the rise ofneo-Platonism (end of the fourth century B.C. to third century afterChrist —moral philosophy); (4)neo-Platonic School (from the third century afterChrist, or, including the systems of the forerunners ofneo-Platonism, from the first century afterChrist, to the end of Greek philosophy in the seventh century — mysticism).
(1) The Pre-Socratic Period
The pre-Socratic philosophers either seek for the stable basis of things — which is water, for Thales of Miletus; air, for Anaximenes of Miletus; air endowed with intelligence, for Diogenes of Apollonia; number, forPythagoras (sixth century B.C.); abstract and immovable being, for the Eleatics — or they study that which changes: while Parmenides and the Eleatics assert that everything is, and nothing changes or becomes. Heraclitus (about 535-475) holds that everything becomes, and nothing is unchangeable. Democritus (fifth century) reduces all beings to groups ofatoms in motion, and this movement, according to Anaxagoras, has for its cause an intelligent being.
(2) The Period of Apogee: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle.
When theSophists (Protagoras, Gorgias) had demonstrated the insufficiency of thesecosmologies,Socrates (470-399) brought philosophical investigation to bear onman himself, studyingman chiefly from themoral point of view. From the presence in us of abstractideasPlato (427-347)deduced theexistence of a world of supersensible realities orideas, of which the visible world is but a pale reflection. Theseideas, which thesoul in an earlierlife contemplated, are now, because of its union with the body, but faintly perceived.Aristotle (384-322), on the contrary, shows that the real dwells in the objects of sense. The theory ofact and potentiality, of form andmatter, is a new solution of the relations between the permanent and the changing. Hispsychology, founded upon the principle of the unity ofman and thesubstantial union ofsoul and body, is a creation of genius. And as much may be said of hislogic.
(3) The Moral Period
AfterAristotle (end of the fourth Century B.C.) fourschools are in evidence:Stoic,Epicurean,Platonic, andAristotelean. TheStoics (Zeno of Citium, Cleanthes, Chrysippus), like theEpicureans, make speculation subordinate to the quest ofhappiness, and the twoschools, in spite of their divergencies, both considerhappiness to beataraxia or absence of sorrow and preoccupation. The teachings of both onnature (DynamisticMonism with theStoics, and PluralisticMechanism with theEpicureans) are only a prologue to theirmoral philosophy. After the latter half of the second century B.C. we perceive reciprocal infiltrations between the variousschools. This issues inEclecticism. Seneca (first century B.C.) and Cicero (106-43 B.C.) are attached toEclecticism with aStoic basis; two great commentators ofAristotle, Andronicus of Rhodes (first century B.C.) and Alexander of Aphrodisia about 200), affect a PeripateticEclecticism. Parallel withEclecticism runs a current ofScepticism (Ænesidemus, end of first century B.C., and Sextus Empiricus, second century A.D.).
(4) The Mystical Period
In the first century B.C. Alexandria had become the capital of Greekintellectual life.Mystical and theurgic tendencies, born of a longing for the ideal and the beyond, began to appear in a current of Greek philosophy which originated in a restoration ofPythagorism and its alliance withPlatonism (Plutarch of Chieronea, first century B.C.; Apuleius of Madaura; Numenius, about 160 and others), and still more in the Graeco-Judaic philosophy ofPhilo the Jew (30 B.C. to A.D. 50). But the dominance of these tendencies is more apparent inneo-Platonism. The most brilliant thinker of theneo-Platonic series is Plotinus (A.D. 20-70). In his "Enneads" he traces the paths which lead thesoul to the One, and establishes, in keeping with hismysticism, anemanationistmetaphysical system. Porphyry of Tyre (232-304), adisciple of Plotinus, popularizes his teaching, emphasizes its religious bearing, and makesAristotle's "Organon" the introduction toneo-Platonic philosophy. Later on,neo-Platonism, emphasizing its religious features, placed itself, with Jamblichus, at the service of thepagan pantheon which growingChristianity was ruining on all sides, or again, as with Themistius at Constantinople (fourth century), Proclus andSimplicius atAthens (fifth century), and Ammonius at Alexandria, it took an Encyclopedic turn. With Ammonius and John Philoponus (sixth century) theneo-Platonic School of Alexandria developed in the direction ofChristianity.
In the closing years of the second century and, still more, in the third century, the philosophy of theFathers of the Church was developed. It was born in a civilization dominated by Greekideas, chieflyneo-Platonic, and on this side its mode of thought is still the ancient. Still, if some, likeSt. Augustine, attach the greatest value to theneo-Platonic teachings, it must not be forgotten that theMonist orPantheistic andEmanationistideas, which have been accentuated by the successors of Plotinus, are carefully replaced by the theory ofcreation and thesubstantial distinction of beings; in this respect a new spirit animates Patristic philosophy. It was developed, too, as an auxiliary of thedogmatic system which the Fathers were to establish. In the third century the great representatives of the Christian School of Alexandria areClement of Alexandria andOrigen. After themGregory of Nyssa,Gregory of Nazianzus,St. Ambrose, and, above all,St. Augustine (354-430) appear.St. Augustine gathers up theintellectual treasures of the ancient world, and is one of the principal intermediaries for their transmission to the modern world. In its definitive form Augustinism is a fusion of intellectualism andmysticism, with a study ofGod as the centre of interest. In the fifth century,pseudo-Dionysius perpetuates many aneo-Platonicdoctrine adapted toChristianity, and his writings exercise a powerful influence in theMiddle Ages.
The philosophy of theMiddle Ages developed simultaneously in the West, at Byzantium, and in divers Eastern centres; but the Western philosophy is the most important. It built itself up with great effort on the ruins of barbarism: until the twelfth century, nothing was known ofAristotle, except some treatises onlogic, or ofPlato, except a few dialogues. Gradually, problems arose, and, foremost, in importance, the question ofuniversals in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries (see NOMINALISM).St. Anselm (1033-1109) made a first attempt at systematizingScholastic philosophy, and developed atheodicy. But as early as the ninth century an anti-Scholastic philosophy had arisen with Eriugena who revived theneo-PlatonicMonism.
In the twelfth centuryScholasticism formulated new anti-Realist doctrines withAdelard of Bath, Gauthier de Mortagne, and, above all,Abelard andGilbert de la Porrée, whilst extremeRealism took shape in theschools ofChartres.John of Salisbury andAlain de Lille, in the twelfth century, are the co-ordinating minds that indicate the maturity ofScholastic thought. The latter of these waged a campaign against thePantheism ofDavid of Dinant and theEpicureanism of theAlbigenses — the two most important forms of anti-Scholastic philosophy. At Byzantium, Greek philosophy held its ground throughout theMiddle Ages, and kept apart from the movement of Westernideas. The same istrue of theSyrians andArabs.
But at the end of the twelfth century the Arabic and Byzantine movement entered into relation with Western thought, and effected, to the profit of the latter, the brilliant philosophical revival of the thirteenth century. This was due, in the first place, to the creation of theUniversity of Paris; next, to the foundation of theDominican andFranciscan orders; lastly, to the introduction of Arabic and Latin translations ofAristotle and the ancient authors. At the same period the works ofAvicenna andAverroes became known atParis. A pleiad of brilliant names fills the thirteenth century —Alexander of Hales,St. Bonaventure, Bl.Albertus Magnus,St. Thomas Aquinas,Godfrey of Fontaines,Henry of Ghent, Giles of Rome, andDuns Scotus — bringScholastic synthesis to perfection. They all wagewar on LatinAverroism and anti-Scholasticism, defended in theschools of Paris bySiger of Brabant.Roger Bacon, Lully, and a group ofneo-Platonists occupy a place apart in this century, which is completely filled by remarkable figures.
In the fourteenth centuryScholastic philosophy betrays the first symptoms of decadence. In place of individualities we have schools, the chief being theThomist, theScotist, and the Terminist School ofWilliam of Occam, which soon attracted numerous partisans. With John of Jandun,Averroism perpetuates its most audacious propositions;Eckhart andNicholas of Cusa formulate philosophies which are symptomatic of the approaching revolution. TheRenaissance was a troublous period for philosophy. Ancient systems were revived: theDialectic of theHumanistic philologists (Laurentius Valla, Vivés),Platonism,Aristoteleanism,Stoicism. Telesius,Campanella, andGiordano Bruno follow anaturalistic philosophy. Natural and sociallaw are renewed withThomas More and Grotius. All these philosophies were leagued together againstScholasticism, and very often againstCatholicism. On the other hand, theScholastic philosophers grew weaker and weaker, and, excepting for the brilliantSpanishScholasticism of the sixteenth century (Bañez,Francisco Suárez, Vasquez, and so on), it may be said thatignorance of the fundamental doctrine became general. In the seventeenth century there was no one to supportScholasticism: it fell, not for lack ofideas, but for lack of defenders.
The philosophies of theRenaissance are mainly negative: modern philosophy is, first and foremost, constructive. The latter is emancipated from alldogma; many of its syntheses are powerful; the definitive formation of the various nationalities and the diversity of languages favour the tendency toindividualism.
The two great initiators of modern philosophy areDescartes andFrancis Bacon. The former inaugurates aspiritualistic philosophy based on the data ofconsciousness, and his influence may be traced inMalebranche,Spinoza, andLeibniz.Bacon heads a line ofEmpiricists, who regarded sensation as the only source ofknowledge.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a Sensualist philosophy grew up inEngland, based onBaconianEmpiricism, and soon to develop in the direction of Subjectivism. Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and David Hume mark the stages of thislogical evolution. Simultaneously an Associationistpsychology appeared also inspired by Sensualism, and, before long, it formed a special field of research. Brown, David Hartley, and Priestley developed the theory ofassociation of ideas in various directions. At the outset Sensualism encountered vigorous opposition, even inEngland, from theMystics andPlatonists of the Cambridge School (Samuel Parker and, especially, Ralph Cudworth). The reaction was still more lively in the Scotch School, founded and chiefly represented by Thomas Reid, to which Adam Ferguson, Oswald, and Dugald Stewart belonged in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and which had great influence overEclecticSpiritualism, chiefly inAmerica andFrance. Hobbes's "selfish" system was developed into a morality byBentham, a partisan ofEgoistic Utilitarianism, and by Adam Smith, a defender ofAltruism, but provoked a reaction among the advocates of the moral sentiment theory (Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Samuel Clarke). InEngland, also, Theism orDeism was chiefly developed, instituting a criticism of all positive religion, which it sought to supplant with a philosophical religion. English Sensualism spread inFrance during the eighteenth century: its influence is traceable inde Condillac, de la Mettrie, and theEncyclopedists; Voltaire popularized it inFrance and with Jean-Jacques Rousseau it made its way among the masses, undermining theirChristianity and preparing the Revolution of 1789. InGermany, the philosophy of the eighteenth century is, directly or indirectly, connected withLeibniz — the School of Wolff, the Æsthetic School (Baumgarten), the philosophy of sentiment. But all the German philosophers of the eighteenth century were eclipsed by the great figure ofKant.
WithKant (1724-1804) modern philosophy enters its second period and takes a critical orientation.Kant bases his theory ofknowledge, hismoral andæsthetic system, and his judgments of finality on the structure of themind. In the first half of the eighteenth century, German philosophy is replete with great names connected withKantianism — after it had been put through aMonistic evolution, however — Fichte, Schelling, andHegel have been called the triumvirate ofPantheism; then again, Schopenhauer, whileHerbart returned toindividualism. French philosophy in the nineteenth century is at first dominated by aneclecticSpiritualistic movement with which the names of Maine de Biran and, especially, Victor Cousin are associated. Cousin haddisciples inAmerica (C. Henry), and inFrance he gained favour with those whom the excesses of theRevolution had alarmed. In the first half of the nineteenth centuryFrenchCatholics approved theTraditionalism inaugurated by de Bonald andde Lamennais, while another group took refuge inOntologism. In the same period Auguste Comte foundedPositivism, to whichLittré and Taine adhered, though it rose to its greatest height in the English-speaking countries. In fact,England may be said to have been the second fatherland ofPositivism; John Stuart Mill, Huxley, Alexander Bain and Herbert Spencer expanded its doctrines, combined them with Associationism and emphasized it criteriological aspect, or attempted (Spencer) to construct a vast synthesis of humansciences. The Associationist philosophy at thistime was confronted by the Scotch philosophy which, inHamilton, combined the teachings of Reid and ofKant and found anAmerican champion in Noah Porter. Mansel spread the doctrines of Hamilton. Associationism regained favour with Thomas Brown and James Mill, but was soon enveloped in the large conception ofPositivism, the dominant philosophy inEngland. Lastly, inItaly,Hegel was for a longtime the leader of nineteenth-century philosophical thought (Vera and d'Ercole), whilstGioberti, theontologist andRosmini occupy a distinct position. More recently,Positivism has gained numerous adherents inItaly. In the middle of the century, a large Krausist School existed inSpain, represented chiefly by Sanz del Rio (d. 1869) and N. Salmeron.Balmes (1810-48), the author of "Fundamental Philosophy" is an original thinker whose doctrines have many points of contact withScholasticism.
Leaving aside social questions, the study of which belongs to philosophy in only some of their aspects, it may be said that in the philosophic interest of the present daypsychological questions hold the first place, and that chief among them is the problem of certitude.Kant, indeed, is so important a factor in the destinies of contemporary philosophy not only because he is the initiator of critical formalism, but still more because heobliges his successors to deal with the preliminary and fundamental question of the limits ofknowledge. On the other hand the experimental investigation ofmental processes has become the object of a new study, psycho-physiology, in which men ofscience co-operate with philosophers, and which meets with increasing success. This study figures in the programme of most modernuniversities. Originating at Leipzig (the School of Wundt) andWürzburg, it has quickly become naturalized inEurope andAmerica. InAmerica, "The Psychological Review" has devoted many articles to this branch of philosophy.Psychological studies are the chosen field of theAmerican (Ladd, William James, Hall).
The great success ofpsychology has emphasized the subjective character ofæsthetics, in which hardly anyone now recognizes the objective andmetaphysical element. The solutions in vogue are theKantian, which represents theæsthetic judgment as formed in accordance with the subjective, structural function of themind, or other psychologic solutions which reduce the beautiful to a psychic impression (the "sympathy", orEinfühlung, of Lipps; the "concrete intuition" of Benedetto Croce). These explanations are insufficient, as they neglect the objective aspect of the beautiful — those elements which, on the part of the object, are the cause of theæsthetic impression and enjoyment. It may be said that theneo-Scholastic philosophy alone takes into account the objectiveæsthetic factor.
The absorbing influence ofpsychology also manifests itself to the detriment of other branches of philosophy; first of all, to the detriment ofmetaphysics, which our contemporaries haveunjustly ostracized —unjustly, since, if theexistence or possibility of a thing-in-itself is considered of importance, it behooves us to inquire under what aspects of reality it reveals itself. This ostracism ofmetaphysics, moreover, is largely due to misconception and to a wrong understanding of the theories ofsubstance, offaculties, of causes etc., which belong to the traditionalmetaphysics. Then again, the invasion ofpsychology is manifest inlogic: side by side with the ancientlogic ordialectic, a mathematical or symboliclogic has developed (Peano, Russell, Peirce, Mitchell, and others) and, more recently, a geneticlogic which would study, not the fixed laws of thought, but the changing process ofmental life and its genesis (Baldwin).
We have seen above (section II, D) how the increasing cultivation ofpsychology has produced otherscientific ramifications which find favour with the learned world.Moral philosophy, long neglected, enjoys a renewed vogue notably in America, where ethnography is devoted to its service (see, e.g., the publications of the Smithsonian Institution). "The International Journal of Ethics" is a review especially devoted to this line of work. In some quarters, where the atmosphere isPositivist, there is a desire to get rid of the old morality, with its notions of value and ofduty, and to replace it with a collection of empiric rules subject to evolution (Sidgwick, Huxley, Leslie Stephen, Durkheim, Levy-Bruhl).
As to the history of philosophy, not only are very extended special studies devoted to it, but more and more room is given it in the study of every philosophic question. Among the causes of this exaggerated vogue are the impulse given by the Schools of Cousin and ofHegel, the progress of historical studies in general, the confusion arising from the clash of rival doctrines, and the distrust engendered by that confusion. Remarkable works have been produced by Deussen, on Indian and Oriental philosophy; by Zeller, on Greek antiquity; byDenifle,Hauréau, Bäumker, and Mandonnet, on theMiddle Ages; by Windelband, Kuno Fischer, Boutroux and Höffding, on the modern period; and the list might easily be considerably prolonged.
The rival systems of philosophy of the presenttime may be reduced to various groups:Positivism, neo-Kantianism,Monism,neo-Scholasticism. Contemporary philosophy lives in an atmosphere ofPhenomenism, sincePositivism and neo-Kantianism are at one on this importantdoctrine: thatscience and certitude are possible only within the limits of the world of phenomena, which is the immediate object of experience.Positivism, insisting on the exclusiverights of sensory experience, andKantian criticism, reasoning from the structure of ourcognitive faculties, hold thatknowledge extends only as far as appearances; that beyond this is the absolute, the dark depths, theexistence of which there is less and less disposition to deny, but which nohumanmind can fathom. On the contrary, this element of the absolute forms an integral constituent inneo-Scholasticism which has revived, with sobriety and moderation, the fundamental notions ofAristotelean andMedievalmetaphysics, and has succeeded in vindicating them against attack and objection.
Positivism, under various forms, is defended inEngland by the followers of Spencer, by Huxley, Lewes, Tyndall, F. Harrison, Congreve, Beesby, J. Bridges, Grant Allen (James Martineau is a reactionary againstPositivism); by Balfour, who at the same time propounds a characteristic theory ofbelief, and falls back onFideism. FromEnglandPositivism passed over toAmerica, where it soon dethroned theScottish doctrines (Carus). De Roberty, inRussia, and Ribot, inFrance, are among its most distinguished disciples. InItaly it is found in the writings of Ferrari, Ardigo, and Morselli; inGermany, in those of Laas, Riehl, Guyau, and Durkheim. Less brutal thanMaterialism, the radicalvice ofPositivism is its identification of the knowable with the sensible. It seeks in vain to reduce generalideas to collective images, and to deny the abstract and universal character of themind's concepts. It vainly denies the super-experiential value of the firstlogical principles in which thescientific life of themind is rooted; nor will it ever succeed in showing that the certitude of such a judgment as 2 + 2 = 4 increases with our repeated addition of numbers of oxen or of coins. Inmorals, where it would reduceprecepts and judgments tosociological data formed in the collectiveconscience and varying with the period and the environment,Positivism stumbles against the judgments of value, and the supersensibleideas ofobligation,moralgood, andlaw, recorded in every humanconscience and unvarying in their essential data.
Kantianism had been forgotten inGermany for some thirty years (1830-60); Vogt, Büchner, and Molesehott had won forMaterialism an ephemeral vogue; butMaterialism was swept away by a strongKantian reaction. This reversion towardsKant (Rückkehr zu Kant) begins to be traceable in 1860 (notably as a result of Lange's "History of Materialism"), and the influence ofKantian doctrines may be said to permeate the whole contemporary German philosophy (Otto Liebmann, von Hartmann, Paulsen, Rehmke, Dilthey, Natorp, Fueken, the Immanentists, and the Empirico-criticists). French neo-Criticism, represented by Renouvier, was connected chiefly withKant's second "Critique" and introduced a specificVoluntarism. Vacherot, Secrétan, Lachelier, Boutroux, Fouillée, and Bergson are all more or less under tribute toKantianism. Ravaisson proclaims himself a follower of Maine de Biran.Kantianism has taken its place in the state programme ofeducation and Paul Janet, who, with F. Bouillier and Caro, was among the last legatees of Cousin'sSpiritualism, appears, in his "Testament philosophique", affecting aMonism with aKantian inspiration. All those who, withKant and thePositivists, proclaim the "bankruptcy ofscience" look for the basis of our certitude in an imperative demand of the will. ThisVoluntarism, also calledPragmatism (William James), and, quite recently,Humanism (Schiller at Oxford), is inadequate to the establishment of the theoreticmoral and socialsciences upon an unshakable base: sooner or later, reflection will ask what this need of living and of willing is worth, and then the intelligence will return to its position as the supreme arbiter of certitude.
FromGermany andFranceKantianism has spread everywhere. InEngland it has called into activity the CriticalIdealism associated with T.H. Green and Bradley. Hodgson, on the contrary, returns toRealism. S. Laurie may be placed between Green and Martineau. Emerson, Harris, Everett, and Royce spreadIdealistic Criticism inAmerica; Shadworth Hodgson, on the other hand, and Adamson tend to return toRealism, whilst James Ward emphasizes the function of the will.
With a great manyKantians, a stratum ofMonisticideas is superimposed on Criticism, the thing in itself being considered numerically one. The same tendencies are observable amongPositivist Evolutionists like Clifford and Romanes, or G.T. Ladd.
Neo-Scholasticism, the revival of which dates from the last third of the nineteenth century (Liberatore,Taparelli,Cornoldi, and others), and which received a powerful impulse underLeo XIII, is tending more and more to become the philosophy ofCatholics. It replacesOntologism,Traditionalism, Gunther'sDualism, andCartesianSpiritualism, which had manifestly become insufficient. Its syntheses, renewed and completed, can be set up in opposition toPositivism andKantianism, and even its adversaries no longer dream of denying the worth of its doctrines. The bearings ofneo-Scholasticism have been treated elsewhere (seeNEO-SCHOLASTICISM).
Considering the historic succession of systems and the evolution of doctrines from the remotest ages ofIndia down to our own times, and standing face to face with the progress achieved by contemporaryscientific philosophy, must we not infer the indefinite progress of philosophic thought? Many have allowed themselves to be led away by this ideal dream. HistoricIdealism (Karl Marx) regards philosophy as a product fatally engendered by pre-existing causes in our physical and social environment. Auguste Comte's "law of the three states", Herbert Spencer's evolutionism,Hegel's "indefinite becoming of thesoul", sweep philosophy along in an ascending current toward an ideal perfection, the realization of which no one can foresee. For all these thinkers, philosophy is variable and relative: therein lies their seriouserror. Indefinite progress, condemned by history in many fields, is untenable in the history of philosophy. Such a notion is evidently refuted by the appearance of thinkers likeAristotle andPlato three centuries beforeChrist, for these men, who for ages have dominated, and still dominate, human thought, would be anachronisms, since they would be inferior to the thinkers of our owntime. And no one would venture to assert this. History shows, indeed, that there are adaptations of a synthesis to its environment, and that every age has its own aspirations and its special way of looking at problems and their solutions; but it also presents unmistakable evidence of incessant new beginnings, of rhythmic oscillations from one pole of thought to the other. IfKant found an original formula of Subjectivism and thereine Innerlichkeit, it would be a mistake to think thatKant had nointellectual ancestors: he had them in the earliest historic ages of philosophy: M. Deussen has found in theVedichymn of the Upanishads the distinction between noumenon and phenomenon, and writes, on the theory of Mâyâ, "Kants Grunddogma, so alt wie die Philosophie" ("Die Philos. des Upanishad's", Leipzig, 1899, p. 204).
It isfalse to say that alltruth is relative to a giventime and latitude, and that philosophy is the product ofeconomicconditions in a ceaseless course of evolution, as historicalMaterialism holds. Side by side with these things, which are subject to change and belong to one particularcondition of thelife ofmankind, there is asoul oftruth circulating in every system, a mere fragment of that complete and unchangeabletruth which haunts thehumanmind in its most disinterested investigations. Amid the oscillations of historic systems there is room for aphilosophia perennis — as it were a purest atmosphere oftruth, enveloping the ages, its clearness somehow felt in spite of cloud and mist.
"ThetruthPythagoras sought after, andPlato, andAristotle, is the same thatAugustine andAquinas pursued. So far as it is developed in history,truth is the daughter oftime; so far as it bears within itself a content independent oftime, and therefore of history, it is the daughter ofeternity" [Willmann, "Gesch. d Idealismus", II (Brunswick, 1896), 550; cf. Commer "Die immerwahrende Philosophie" (Vienna, 1899)].
This does not mean that essential and permanentverities do not adapt themselves to theintellectual life of each epoch. Absolute immobility in philosophy, no less than absolute relativity, is contrary tonature and to history. It leads to decadence and death. It is in this sense that we must interpret the adage:Vita in motu.
Aristotle of old laid the foundation of a philosophy supported by observation and experience. We need only glance through the list of his works to see thatastronomy, mineralogy,physics and chemistry,biology, zoology, furnished him with examples and bases for his theories on the constitution, of the heavenly and terrestrial bodies, thenature of the vital principle, etc. Besides, the wholeAristotelean classification of the branches of philosophy (seesection II) is inspired by the sameidea of making philosophy — generalscience — rest upon the particularsciences. The earlyMiddle Ages, with a rudimentaryscientific culture, regarded all its learning, built up on the Trivium (grammar, rhetoric,dialectic) and Quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry,astronomy, music), as preparation for philosophy. In the thirteenth century, whenScholasticism came underAristotelean influences, it incorporated thesciences in the programme of philosophy itself. This may be seen in regulation issued by theFaculty of Arts ofParis 19 March, 1255, "De libris qui legendi essent" This order prescribes the study of commentaries or variousscientific treatises ofAristotle, notably those on the first book of the "Meteorologica", on the treatises on Heaven and Earth, Generation, the Senses and Sensations, Sleeping and Waking, Memory, Plants, and Animals. Here are amply sufficient means for themagistri to familiarize the "artists" withastronomy, botany, physiology, and zoology to say nothing ofAristotle's "Physics", which was also prescribed as a classical text, and which afforded opportunities for numerous observations in chemistry andphysics as then understood. Grammar and rhetoric served as preliminary studies tologic,Bible history, social science, and politics were introductory tomoral philosophy. Such men asAlbertus Magnus andRoger Bacon expressed their views on thenecessity of linking thesciences with philosophy and preached it by example. So that both antiquity and theMiddle Agesknew and appreciatedscientific philosophy.
In the seventeenth century the question of the relation between the two enters upon a new phase: from this period modernscience takes shape and begins that triumphal march which it is destined to continue through the twentieth century, and of which thehumanmind is justly proud. Modernscientificknowledge differs from that of antiquity and theMiddle Ages in three important respects: the multiplication ofsciences; their independent value; the divergence between commonknowledge andscientificknowledge. In theMiddle Agesastronomy was closely akin toastrology, chemistry toalchemy,physics todivination; modernscience has severely excluded all these fantastic connections. Considered now from one side and again from another, the physical world has revealed continually new aspects, and each specific point of view has become the focus of a new study. On the other hand, by defining their respective limits, thesciences have acquired autonomy; useful in theMiddle Ages only as a preparation for rationalphysics and formetaphysics, they are nowadays of value for themselves, and no longer play the part of handmaids to philosophy. Indeed, the progress achieved within itself by each particularscience brings one more revolution inknowledge. So long as instruments of observation were imperfect, andinductive methods restricted, it was practically impossible to rise above an elementaryknowledge. Peopleknew, in theMiddle Ages, that wine, when left exposed to the air, became vinegar; but what do facts like this amount to in comparison with the complex formulae of modern chemistry? Hence it was that anAlbertus Magnus or aRoger Bacon could flatter himself, in those days, with having acquired all thescience of histime, a claim which would now only provoke a smile. In every department progress has drawn the line sharply between popular andscientificknowledge; the former is ordinarily the starting-point of the latter, but the conclusions and teachings involved in thesciences are unintelligible to those who lack the requisite preparation.
Do not, then, these profound modifications in thecondition of thesciences entail modifications in the relations which, until the seventeenth century, had been accepted as existing between thesciences and philosophy? Must not the separation of philosophy andscience widen out to a complete divorce? Many have thought so, bothscientists and philosophers, and it was for this that in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries so many savants and philosophers turned their backs on one another. For the former, philosophy has become useless; the particularsciences, they say, multiplying and becoming perfect, must exhaust the whole field of the knowable, and atime will come when philosophy shall be no more. For the philosophers, philosophy has no need of the immeasurable mass ofscientific notions which have been acquired, many of which possess only a precarious and provisional value. Wolff, who pronounced the divorce ofscience from philosophy, did most to accredit this view, and he has been followed by certainCatholic philosophers who held thatscientific study may be excluded from philosophic culture.
What shall we say on this question? That the reasons which formerly existed for keeping touch withscience are a thousand times more imperative in our day. If the profound synthetic view of things which justifies theexistence of philosophy presupposes analytical researches, the multiplication and perfection of those researches is certainly reason for neglecting them. The horizon of detailedknowledge widens incessantly; research of every kind is busy exploring the departments of theuniverse which it has mapped out. And philosophy, whose mission is to explain the order of theuniverse by general and ultimate reasons applicable, not only to a group of facts, but to the whole body of known phenomena, cannot be indifferent to thematter which it has to explain. Philosophy is like a tower whence we obtain the panorama of a great city — its plan, its monuments, its great arteries, with the form and location of each — things which a visitor cannot discern while he goes through the streets and lanes, or visitslibraries,churches, palaces, and museums, one after another. If the city grows and develops, there is all the more reason, if we wouldknow it as a whole, why we should hesitate to ascend the tower and study from that height the plan upon which its new quarters have been laid out.
It is, happily, evident that contemporary philosophy is inclined to be first and foremost ascientific philosophy; it has found its way back from its wanderings of yore. This is noticeable in philosophers of the most opposite tendencies. There would be no end to the list if we had to enumerate every case where this orientation ofideas has been adopted. "This union", says Boutroux, speaking of thesciences and philosophy, "is intruth the classic tradition of philosophy. But there had been established apsychology and ametaphysics which aspired to set themselves up beyond thesciences, by mere reflection of themind upon itself. Nowadays all philosophers are agreed to makescientific data their starting-point" (Address at the International Congress of Philosophy in 1900;Revue de Métaph. et de Morale, 1900, p. 697). Boutroux and many others spoke similarly at the International Congress of Bologna (April, 1911). Wundt introduces this union into the very definition of philosophy, which, he says, is "the generalscience whose function it is to unite in a system free of all contradictions theknowledge acquired through the particularsciences, and to reduce to their principles the general methods ofscience and theconditions ofknowledge supposed by them" ("Einleitung in die Philosophie", Leipzig, 1901, p. 19). And R. Eucken says: "The farther back the limits of the observable world recede, the moreconscious are we of the lack of an adequately comprehensive explanation" — "Gesammelte Aufsatze zur Philos. u. Lebensanschanung" (Leipzig, 1903), p. 157]. This same thought inspiredLeo XIII when he placed the parallel and harmonious teaching of philosophy and of thesciences on the programme of the Institute of Philosophy created by him in theUniversity of Louvain (seeNEO-SCHOLASTICISM).
On their side, thescientists have been coming to the same conclusions ever since they rose to a synthetic view of thatmatter which is the object of their study. So it was withPasteur, so with Newton. Ostwald, professor of chemistry atLeipzig, has undertaken to publish the "Annalen der Naturphilosophie", a review devoted to the cultivation of the territory which is common to philosophy and thesciences A great many men ofscience, too, are engaged in philosophy without knowing it: in their constant discussions of "Mechanism", "Evolutionism", "Transformism", they are using terms which imply a philosophical theory ofmatter.
If philosophy is the explanation as a whole of that world which the particularsciences investigate in detail, it follows that the latter find their culmination in the former, and that as thesciences are so will philosophy be. It istrue that objections are put forward against this way of uniting philosophy and thesciences. Common observation, it is said, is enough support for philosophy. This is a mistake: philosophy cannot ignore whole departments ofknowledge which are inaccessible to ordinary experiencebiology, for example, has shed a new light on the philosophic study ofman. Others again adduce the extent and the growth of thesciences to show thatscientific philosophy must ever remain an unattainable ideal; the practical solution of this difficulty concerns the teaching of philosophy (seesection XI).
Religion presents toman, with authority, the solution ofman's problems which also concern philosophy. Such are the questions of thenature of God, ofHis relation with the visible world, ofman's origin and destiny. Now religion, which precedes philosophy in the social life, naturallyobliges it to take into consideration the points of religiousdoctrine. Hence the close connection of philosophy with religion in the early stages of civilization, a fact strikingly apparent in Indian philosophy, which, not only at its beginning but throughout its development, was intimately bound up with thedoctrine of the sacred books (see above). The Greeks, at least during the most important periods of their history, were much less subject to the influences ofpaganreligions; in fact, they combined with extreme scrupulosity in what concerned ceremonial usage a wide liberty in regard todogma. Greek thought soon took its independent flight;Socrates ridicules the gods in whom the common peoplebelieved;Plato does not banish religiousideas from his philosophy; butAristotle keeps them entirely apart, hisGod is theActus purus, with a meaning exclusively philosophic, the prime mover of the universalmechanism. TheStoics point out that all things obey an irresistible fatality and that the wise manfears no gods. And ifEpicurus teaches cosmicdeterminism and denies all finality, it is only to conclude thatman can lay aside allfear of divine intervention in mundane affairs. The question takes a new aspect when the influences of the Oriental and Jewishreligions are brought to bear on Greek philosophy byneo-Pythagorism, the Jewishtheology (end of the first century), and, above all,neo-Platonism (third century B.C.). A yearning for religion was stirring in the world, and philosophy became enamoured of every religious doctrine Plotinus (third century afterChrist), who must always remain the most perfect type of theneo-Platonic mentality, makes philosophy identical with religion, assigning as its highest aim the union of thesoul withGod bymystical ways. Thismystical need of thesupernatural issues in the most bizarre lucubrations from Plotinus's successors, e.g. Jamblicus (d. about A.D. 330), who, on a foundation ofneo-Platonism, erected an international pantheon for all the divinities whose names areknown.
It has often been remarked thatChristianity, with itsmonotheisticdogma and its serene, purifying morality, came in the fulness oftime and appeased the inward unrest with whichsouls were afflicted at the end of the Roman world. ThoughChrist did not make Himself the head of a philosophical school, thereligion which He founded supplies solutions for a group of problems which philosophy solves by other methods (e.g. theimmortality of thesoul). The firstChristian philosophers, theFathers of the Church, were imbued with Greekideas and took over from the circumambientneo-Platonism the commingling of philosophy and religion. With them philosophy is incidental and secondary, employed only to meet polemic needs, and to supportdogma; their philosophy is religious. In thisClement of Alexandria andOrigen are one withSt. Augustine andPseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. The earlyMiddle Ages continued the same traditions, and the first philosophers may be said to have receivedneo-Platonic influences through the channel of theFathers.John Scotus Eriugena (ninth century), the most remarkablemind of this first period, writes that "true religion istrue philosophy and, conversely,true philosophy istrue religion" (De div. praed., I, I). But as the era advances a process of dissociation sets in, to end in the complete separation between the twosciences ofScholastic theology or the study ofdogma, based fundamentally onHoly Scripture, andScholastic philosophy, based on purely rational investigation. To understand the successive stages of this differentiation, which was not completed until the middle of the thirteenth century, we must draw attention to certain historical facts of capital importance.
(1) The origin of several philosophical problems, in the earlyMiddle Ages, must be sought within the domain oftheology, in the sense that the philosophical discussions arose in reference totheological questions. The discussion, e.g. oftransubstantiation (Berengarius of Tours), raised the problem ofsubstance and of change, or becoming.
(2) Theology being regarded as a superior andsacred science, the whole pedagogic and didactic organization of the period tended to confirm this superiority (seesection XI).
(3) The enthusiasm for dialectics, which reached its maximum in the eleventh century, brought into fashion certain purely verbal methods of reasoning bordering on the sophistical. Anselm of Besata (Anselmus Peripateticus) is the type of this kind of reasoner. Now the dialecticians, in discussingtheological subjects, claimed absolute validity for their methods, and they ended in suchheresies asGottschalk's onpredestination,Berengarius's ontransubstantiation, andRoscelin'sTritheism.Berengarius's motto was: "Per omnia ad dialecticam confugere". There followed an excessive reaction on the part of timoroustheologians, practical men before all things, who charged dialectics with thesins of the dialecticians. This antagonistic movement coincided with an attempt to reformreligious life. At the head of the group wasPeter Damian (1007-72), the adversary of theliberal arts; he was the author of the saying that philosophy is the handmaid oftheology. From this saying it has been concluded that theMiddle Ages in general put philosophy under tutelage, whereas the maxim was current only among a narrow circle of reactionarytheologians. Side by side withPeter Damian inItaly, were Manegold of Lautenbach andOthloh of St. Emmeram, inGermany.
(4) At the same time a new tendency becomes discernible in the eleventh century, inLanfranc,William of Hirschau, Rodulfus Ardens, and particularlySt. Anselm of Canterbury; thetheologian calls in the aid of philosophy to demonstrate certaindogmas or to show their rational side.St. Anselm, in an Augustinian spirit, attempted this justification ofdogma, without perhaps invariably applying to the demonstrative value of his arguments the requisite limitations. In the thirteenth century these efforts resulted in a newtheological method, thedialectic.
(5) While these disputes as to the relations of philosophy andtheology went on, many philosophical questions were nevertheless treated on their own account, as we have seen above (universals, St. Anselm'stheodicy,Abelard's philosophy, etc.).
(6) Thedialectic method, developed fully in the twelfth century, just whenScholastic theology received a powerful impetus, is atheological, not a philosophical, method. The principal method intheology is the interpretation ofScripture and of authority; thedialectic method is secondary and consists in first establishing adogma and then showing its reasonableness, confirming the argument from authority by the argument fromreason. It is a process ofapologetics. From the twelfth century onward, these twotheological methods are fairly distinguished by the wordsauctoritates, rationes.Scholastic theology, condensed in the "summae" and "books of sentences", is henceforward regarded as distinct from philosophy. The attitude oftheologians towards philosophy is threefold: one group, the least influential, still opposes its introduction intotheology, and carries on the reactionary traditions of the preceding period (e.g. Gauthier de Saint-Victor); another accepts philosophy, but takes a utilitarian view of it, regarding it merely as a prop ofdogma (Peter Lombard); a third group, the most influential, since it includes the threetheological schools ofSt. Victor,Abelard, andGilbert de la Porrée, grants to philosophy, in addition to thisapologetic role, an independent value which entitles it to be cultivated and studied for its own sake. The members of this group are at once boththeologians and philosophers.
(7) At the opening of the thirteenth century one section of Augustiniantheologians continued to emphasize the utilitarian andapologetic office of philosophy. ButSt. Thomas Aquinas created newScholastic traditions, and wrote a chapter onscientific methodology in which the distinctness and in dependence of the twosciences is thoroughly established.Duns Scotus, again, and the Terminists exaggerated this independence. LatinAverroism, which had a brilliant but ephemeral vogue in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, accepted whole and entire in philosophyAverroistic Peripateticism, and, to safeguardCatholicorthodoxy, took refuge behind the sophism that what istrue in philosophy may befalse intheology, and conversely — wherein they were more reserved thanAverroes and theArab philosophers, who regarded religion as something inferior, good enough for the masses, and who did not trouble themselves aboutMoslem orthodoxy. Lully, going to extremes, maintained that alldogma is susceptible of demonstration, and that philosophy andtheology coalesce. Taken as a whole, theMiddle Ages, profoundly religious, constantly sought to reconcile its philosophy with theCatholicFaith. This bond theRenaissance philosophy severed. In theReformation period a group of publicists, in view of the prevailing strife, formed projects of reconciliation among the numerous religious bodies. They convinced themselves that allreligions possess a common fund of essentialtruths relating toGod, and that their content is identical, in spite of divergentdogmas. Besides, Theism, being only a form ofNaturism applied to religion, suited the independent ways of theRenaissance. As in building upnatural law,humannature was taken into consideration, soreason was interrogated to discover religiousideas. And hence the wide acceptance of Theism, not amongProtestants only, but generally amongminds that had been carried away with theRenaissance movement (Erasmus, Coornheert).
For thistolerance or religiousindifferentism modern philosophy in more than one instance substituted a disdain of positivereligions. The English Theism orDeism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries criticizes all positive religion and, in the name of an innate religious sense, builds up a natural religion which is reducible to a collection of theses on theexistence of God and theimmortality of thesoul. The initiator of this movement was Herbert of Cherbury (1581-1648); J. Toland (1670-1722), Tindal (1656-1733), and Lord Bolingbroke took part in it. This criticizing movement inaugurated inEngland was taken up inFrance, where it combined with an outrighthatred ofCatholicism. Pierre Bayle (1646-1706) propounded the thesis that all religion is anti-rational and absurd, and that a state composed ofAtheists is possible. Voltaire wished to substitute forCatholicism an incoherent mass of doctrines aboutGod. The religious philosophy of the eighteenth century inFrance led toAtheism and paved the way for theRevolution. Injustice to contemporary philosophy it must be credited with teaching the amplesttolerance towards the variousreligions; and in its programme of research it has included religiouspsychology, or the study of the religious sentiment.
ForCatholic philosophy the relations between philosophy andtheology, betweenreason andfaith, were fixed, in a chapter ofscientific methodology, by the greatScholastic thinkers of the thirteenth century. Its principles, which still retain their vitality, are as follows:
(a) Distinctness of the two sciences.
The independence of philosophy in regard totheology, as in regard to any otherscience whatsoever, is only an interpretation of this undeniable principle ofscientific progress, as applicable in the twentieth century as it was in the thirteenth, that a rightly constitutedscience derives its formal object, its principles, and its constructive method from its own resources, and that, this being so, it cannot borrow from any otherscience without compromising its ownright to exist.
(b) Negative, not positive, material, not formal, subordination of philosophy in regard to theology.
This means that, while the twosciences keep their formal independence (the independence of the principles by which their investigations are guided), there are certain matters where philosophy cannot contradict the solutions afforded bytheology. TheScholastics of theMiddle Ages justified this subordination, being profoundly convinced thatCatholicdogma contains theinfallibleword of God, the expression oftruth. Once a proposition, e.g. that two and two make four, has been accepted ascertain,logic forbids any otherscience to form any conclusion subversive of that proposition. The material mutual subordination of thesciences is one of thoselaws out of whichlogic makes the indispensable guarantee of the unity ofknowledge. "Thetruth duly demonstrated by onescience serves as a beacon in anotherscience." Thecertainty of a theory in chemistry imposes its acceptance onphysics, and thephysicist who should go contrary to it would be out of his course. Similarly, the philosopher cannot contradict thecertain data oftheology, any more than he can contradict thecertain conclusions of the individualsciences. To deny this would be to deny the conformity oftruth withtruth, to contest the principle of contradiction, to surrender to arelativism which is destructive of all certitude. "It being supposed that nothing but what istrue is included in thisscience (sacred theology) . . . it being supposed that whatever istrue by the decision and authority of thisscience can nowise befalse by the decision of rightreason: these things, I say, being supposed, as it is manifest from them that the authority of thisscience andreason alike rest upontruth, and oneverity cannot be contrary to another, it must be said absolutely thatreason can in no way be contrary to the authority of thisScripture, nay, all rightreason is in accord with it" (Henry of Ghent, "Summa Theologica", X, iii, n.4).
But when is a theorycertain? This is a question of fact, anderror is easy. In proportion as the principle is simple and absolute, so are its applications complex and variable. It is not for philosophy to establish the certitude oftheological data, any more than to fix the conclusions of chemistry or of physiology. Thecertainty of those data and those conclusions must proceed from another source. "The preconceivedidea is entertained that aCatholic savant is a soldier in the service of his religiousfaith, and that, in his hands,science is but a weapon to defend his Credo. In the eyes of a great many people, theCatholic savant seems to be always under the menace ofexcommunication, or entangled indogmas which hamper him, and compelled, for the sake of loyalty to hisFaith, to renounce the disinterested love ofscience and its free cultivation" (Mercier, "Rapport sur les études supér. de philos.", 1891, p. 9). Nothing could be moreuntrue.
The principles which govern thedoctrinal relations of philosophy andtheology have moved theCatholicChurch to intervene on various occasions in the history of philosophy. As to theChurch'sright andduty to intervene for the purpose of maintaining the integrity oftheologicaldogma and the deposit offaith, there is no need of discussion in this place. It is interesting, however, to note the attitude taken by theChurch towards philosophy throughout the ages, and particularly in theMiddle Ages, when a civilization saturated withChristianity had established extremely intimate relations betweentheology and philosophy.
A. The censures of theChurch have never fallen upon philosophy as such, but upontheological applications, judgedfalse, which were based upon philosophical reasonings.John Scotus Eriugena,Roscelin,Berengarius,Abelard,Gilbert de la Porrée were condemned because their teachings tended to subverttheologicaldogmas. Eriugena denied the substantial distinction betweenGod and created things;Roscelin held that there are threeGods;Berengarius, that there is no realtransubstantiation in the Eucharist;Abelard andGilbert de la Porrée essentially modified thedogma of the Trinity. TheChurch, through her councils, condemned theirtheologicalerrors; with their philosophy as such she does not concern herself. "Nominalism", saysHauréau, "is the old enemy. It is, in fact, thedoctrine which, because it best accords withreason, is most remote from axioms offaith. Denounced before council after council,Nominalism was condemned in the person ofAbelard as it had been in the person ofRoscelin" (Hist. philos. scol., I, 292).
No assertion could be more inaccurate. What theChurch has condemned is neither the so-calledNominalism, norRealism, nor philosophy in general, nor the method of arguing intheology, but certain applications of that method which are judged dangerous, i.e. matters which are not philosophical. In the thirteenth century a host of teachers adopted the philosophical theories ofRoscelin andAbelard, and no councils were convoked to condemn them. The same may be said of the condemnation ofDavid of Dinant (thirteenth century), who denied the distinction betweenGod and matter, and of various doctrines condemned in the fourteenth century as tending to the negation of morality. It has been the same in modern times. To mention only the condemnation of Gunther, ofRosmini, and ofOntologism in the nineteenth century, what alarmed theChurch was the fact that the theses in question had a theological bearing.
B.TheChurch has never imposed any philosophical system, though she hasanathematized many doctrines, or branded them as suspect. This corresponds with the prohibitive, but not imperative attitude oftheology in regard to philosophy. To take one example,faith teaches that the world wascreated intime; and yetSt. Thomas maintains that the concept ofeternalcreation (ab aeterno) involves no contradiction. He did not think himselfobliged to demonstratecreation intime: his teaching would have been heterodox only if, with theAverroists his day, he had maintained thenecessaryeternity of the world. It may, perhaps, be objected that manyThomistic doctrines were condemned in 1277 by Etienne Tempier,Bishop ofParis. But it is well to note, and recent works on the subject have abundantlyproved this, that Tempier's condemnation, in so far as it applied toThomas Aquinas, was the issue of intrigues and personal animosity, and that, in canon law, it had no force outside of theDiocese of Paris. Moreover, it was annulled by one of Tempier's successors, Etienne de Borrète, in 1325.
C.TheChurch has encouraged philosophy. To say nothing of the fact that all those who applied themselves toscience and philosophy in theMiddle Ages werechurchmen, and that theliberal arts found an asylum in capitular andmonasticschools until the twelfth century, it is important to remark that the principaluniversities of theMiddle Ages were pontifical foundations. This was the case withParis. To be sure, in the first years of theuniversity's aquaintance with theAristotelean encyclopaedia (late twelfth century) there were prohibitions against reading the "Physics", the "Metaphysics", and the treatise "On the Soul". But these restrictions were of a temporary character and arose out of particular circumstances. In 1231,Gregory IX laid upon a commission of three consultors the charge to prepare an amended edition ofAristotle "ne utile per inutile vitietur" (lest what is useful suffer damage through what is useless). The work of expurgatio was done, in point of fact, by the Albertine-Thomist School, and, beginning from the year 1255, theFaculty of Arts, with theknowledge of the ecclesiastical authority, ordered the teaching of all the books previously prohibited (see Mandonnet, "Siger de Brabant et l'averroïsme latin au XIIIe s.", Louvain, 1910). It might also be shown how in modern times and in our own day thepopes have encouraged philosophic studies.Leo XIII, as is well known, considered the restoration of philosophicThomism on of the chief tasks of his pontificate.
The methods of teaching philosophy have varied in various ages.Socrates used to interview his auditors, and hold symposia in the market-place, on the porticoes and in the public gardens. His method was interrogation; he whetted the curiosity of the audience and practised what had become known asSocratic irony and the maieutic art (maieutikê techne), the art of deliveringminds of their conceptions. Hissuccessor openedschools properly so called, and from the place occupied by theseschools several systems took their names (theStoic School, the Academy, the Lyceum). In theMiddle Ages and down to the seventeenth century, the learned language was Latin. The German discourses ofEckhart are mentioned as merely sporadic examples. From the ninth to the twelfth century teaching was confined to themonastic andcathedralschools. It was the golden age ofschools. Masters and students went from oneschool to another:Lanfranc travelled overEurope;John of Salisbury (twelfth century) heard atParis all the then famous professors of philosophy;Abelard gathered crowds about his rostrum. Moreover, as the same subjects were taught everywhere, and from the same text-books,scholastic wanderings were attended with few disadvantages. The books took the form of commentaries or monographs. From thetime ofAbelard a method came into use which met with great success, that of setting forth the pros and cons of a question, which was later perfected by the addition of asolutio. The application of this method was extended in the thirteenth century (e.g. in the"Summa theologica" ofSt. Thomas). Lastly, philosophy being aneducational preparation fortheology, the "Queen of the Sciences", philosophical andtheological topics were combined in one and the same book, or even in the same lecture.
At the end of the twelfth century and the beginning of the thirteenth, theUniversity of Paris was organized, and philosophical teaching was concentrated in theFaculty of Arts. Teaching was dominated by two principles:internationalism andfreedom. The student was an apprentice-professor: after receiving the various degrees, he obtained from the chancellor of theuniversity a licence to teach (licentia docendi). Many of the courses of this period have been preserved, the abbreviated script of theMiddle Ages being virtually a stenographic system. The programme of courses drawn up in 1255 is well known: it comprises theexegesis of all the books ofAristotle. The commentary, orlectio (fromlegere, to read), is the ordinary form of instruction (whence the GermanVorlesungen and the Englishlecture). There were also disputations, in which questions were treated by means of objections and answers; the exercise took a lively character, each one being invited to contribute his thoughts on the subject. TheUniversity of Paris was the model for all the others, notably those of Oxford and Cambridge. These forms of instruction in theuniversities lasted as long asAristoteleanism, i.e. until the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century — thesiècle des lumières (Erklärung) — philosophy took a popular and encyclopedic form, and was circulated in the literary productions of the period. In the nineteenth century it resumed its didactic attitude in theuniversities and in theseminaries, where, indeed its teaching had long continued. The advance of philological and historical studies had a great influence on the character of philosophical teaching: critical methods were welcomed, and little by little the professors adopted the practice of specializing in this or that branch of philosophy — a practice which is still in vogue. Without attempting to touch on all the questions involved in modern methods of teaching philosophy, we shall here indicate some of the principal features.
The earliest of the moderns — asDescartes orLeibniz — used both Latin and the vernacular, but in the nineteenth century (except inecclesiastical seminaries and in certain academical exercises mainly ceremonial in character) the living languages supplanted Latin; the result has been a gain in clearness of thought and interest and vitality of teaching. Teaching in Latin too often contents itself with formulae: the living language effects a better comprehension of things which must in any case be difficult. Personal experience, writes Fr. Hogan, formerly superior of the Boston Seminary, in his "Clerical Studies" (Philadelphia, 1895-1901), has shown that among students who have learned philosophy, particularlyScholastic, only in Latin, very few have acquired anything more than a mass of formulae, which they hardly understand; though this does not always prevent their adhering to their formulae through thick and thin. Those who continue to write in Latin — as manyCatholic philosophers, often of the highest worth, still do — have the sad experience of seeing their books confined to a very narrow circle of readers.
Aristotle's advice, followed by theScholastics, still retains its value and its force: before giving the solution of a problem, expound the reasons for and against. This explains, in particular, the great part played by the history of philosophy or the critical examination of the solutions proposed by the great thinkers. Commentary on a treatise still figures in some special higher courses; but contemporary philosophical teaching is principally divided according to the numerous branches of philosophy (seesection II). The introduction of laboratories and practicalseminaries (séminaires practiques) in philosophical teaching has been of the greatest advantage. Side by side withlibraries and shelves full of periodicals there is room for laboratories and museums, once thenecessity of vivifying philosophy by contact with thesciences is admitted (seesection VIII). As for the practicalseminary, in which a group of students, with the aid of a teacher, investigate to some special problem, it may be applied to any branch of philosophy with remarkable results. The work in common, where each directs hisindividual efforts towards one general aim, makes each the beneficiary of the researches of all; it accustoms them to handling the instruments of research, facilitates the detection of facts, teaches the pupil how to discover for himself the reasons for what he observes, affords a real experience in the constructive methods of discovery proper to each subject, and very often decides thescientific vocation of those whose efforts have been crowned with a first success.
One of the most complex questions is: With what branch ought philosophical teaching to begin, and what order should it follow? In conformity with an immemorial tradition, the beginning is often made withlogic. Nowlogic, thescience ofscience, is difficult to understand and unattractive in the earliest stages of teaching. It is better to begin with thesciences which take the real for their object:psychology,cosmology,metaphysics, andtheodicy.Scientificlogic will be better understood later on;moral philosophy presupposespsychology; systematic history of philosophy requires a preliminary acquaintance with all the branches of philosophy (see Mercier, "Manuel de philosophie", Introduction, third edition, Louvain, 1911).
Connected with this question of the order of teaching is another: viz. What should be thescientific teaching preliminary to philosophy? Only a course in thesciences specially appropriate to philosophy can meet the manifold exigencies of the problem. The generalscientific courses of our modernuniversities include too much or too little: "too much in the sense that professional teaching must go into numerous technical facts and details with which philosophy has nothing to do; too little, because professional teaching often makes the observation of facts its ultimate aim, whilst, from our standpoint, facts are, and can be, only a means, a starting-point, towards acquiring aknowledge of the most general causes andlaws" (Mercier, "Rapport sur les études supérieures de philosophie", Louvain, 1891, p. 25). M. Boutroux, a professor at theSorbonne, solves the problem of philosophical teaching at theuniversity in the same sense, and, according to him, the flexible and very liberal organization of the faculty of philosophy should include "the whole assemblage of thesciences, whether theoretic, mathematico-physical, or philologico-historical" ("Revue internationale de l'enseignement", Paris, 1901, p. 510). The programme of courses of the Institute of Philosophy ofLouvain is drawn up in conformity with this spirit.
GENERAL WORKS. — MERCIER,Cours de philosophie. Logique. Criteriologie générale. Ontologie. Psychologie (Louvain, 1905-10); NYS,Cosmologie (Louvain, 1904); Stonyhurst Philosophical Series: — CLARKE,Logic (London, 1909); JOHN RICKABY,First Principles of Knowledge (London, 1901); JOSEPH RICKABY,Moral Philosophy (London, 1910); BOEDDER,Natural Theology (London, 1906); MAHER,Psychology (London, 1909); JOHN RICKABY,General Metaphysics (London, 1909); WALKER,Theories of Knowledge (London, 1910--); ZIGLIARA,Summa philos. (Paris); SCHIFFINI,Principia philos. (Turin); URRABURU,Institut. philosophiae (Valladolid); IDEM,Compend. phil. schol. (Madrid);Philosophia Locensis: — PASCH,Inst. Logicales (Freiburg, 1888); IDEM,Inst. phil. natur. (Freiburg, 1880); IDEM,Inst. psychol. (Freiburg, 1898); HONTHEIM,Inst. theodicaeae; MEYER,Inst. iuris notur.; DOMET DE VORGEs,Abrégé de métaophysique (Paris); FAROES,Etudes phil. (Paris); GUTBERLET,Lehrbuch der Philos. Logik und Erkenntnistheorie, Algemeine Metaphys., Naturphilos., Die psychol., Die Theodicee, Ethik u. Naturrecht, Ethik u. Religion (Münster, 1878-85); RABIER,Leçons de phil. (Paris); WINDELBAND with the collaboration of LIEBMANN, WUNDT, LIPPS, BAUSH, LASK, RICKERT, TROELTSCH, and GROOS,Die Philos. im Beginn des zwanzigsten Jahrhund. (Heidelberg);Systematische Philosophie by DILTHEY, RIEHL, WUNDT, OSTWALD, EBBINGHAUS, EUCKEM, PAULSEN, and MUNCH; LIPPS,Des Gesamtwerkers, Die Kultur der Gegenwärt (Leipzig), pt. I, vi; DE WULF, tr. COFFEY,Scholasticism Old and New. An Introduction to Neo-Scholastic Philosophy (Dublin, 1907); KULPE,Einleitung in die Philos. (Leipzig); WUNDT,Einleitung in die Philos. (Leipzig); HARPER,The Metaphysics of the School (London, 1879-84).
DICTIONARIES. — BALDWIN,Dict. of Philosophy and Psychology (London, 1901-05); FRANCE,Dict. des sciences Phil. (Paris, 1876); EISLER,Wörterbuch der Philosoph. Begriffe (Berlin, 1899);Vocabulaire technique et critique de Phil., in course of publication by the Soc. française do philosophie.
COLLECTIONS. —Bibliothèque de l'Institut supérieur de Philosophie; PEILLAUBE,Bibl. de Phil. expérimentale (Paris); RIVIERE,Bibl. de Phil. contemporaine (Paris);Coll. historique des grands Philosophes (Paris); LE BON,Bibl. de Philosophie scientif. (Paris); PIAT,Les grands Philosophes (Paris);Philosophische Bibliothek (Leipzig).
PERIODICAL PUBLICATIONS. —Mind, a quarterly review of psychology and Philosophy (London, 1876--);The Philosoph. Rev. (New York, 1892--);Internat. Jour. of Ethics (Philadelphia);Proc. of Aristotelian Society (London, 1888--);Rev. Neo-scholastique de Phil. (Louvain, 1894--);Rev. des sciences phil. et théol. (Paris)Revue Thomiste (Toulouse, 1893--);Annales de Philosophie Chret. (Paris, 1831--);Rev. de Philos. (Paris);Philosophisches Jahrbuch (Fulda);Zeitschr. für Philos. und Philosophische Kritik, formerlyFichte-Utrisische Zeitschr. (Leipzig, 1847--);Kantstudien (Berlin, 1896--);Arch. f. wissehoftliche Philos. und Soziologie (Leipzig, 1877--);Arch. f. systematische Philos. (Berlin, 1896);Arch. f. Gesch. d. Philos. (Berlin, 1888--);Rev. Phil. de la France et de l'Etranger (Paris, 1876--);Rev. de métaph. et de morale (Paris, 1894--);Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte (Amsterdam, 1907--);Riv. di filosofio neo-scholastico (Florence, 1909--);Rivisto di filosofia (Modena).
DIVISION OF PHILOSOPHY. — Methods. — MARIETAN,Le probème de la classification des sciences d'Aristote d S. Thomas (Paris, 1901); WILLMANN,Didaktik (Brunswick, 1903).
GENERAL HISTORY. — UEBERWEG,Hist. of Philosophy, tr. HARRIS (New York, 1875-76); ERDMANN,Hist. of Phil. (London, 1898); WINDELBAND,Hist. of Phil. (New York, 1901); TURNER,Hist. of Phil. (Boston, 1903); WILLMANN,Gesch. des Idealismus (Brunswick, 1908); ZELLER,Die Philos. der Griechen (Berlin), tr. ALLEYNE, RETEHEL, GOODWIN, COSTELLOE, and MUIRHEAD (London); DE WULF,Hist. of Mediaeval Phil. (London, 1909; Paris, Tübingen, and Florence, 1912); WINDELRAND,Gesch. der neueren Philos. (Leipzig, 1872-80), tr. TUFTS (New York, 1901); HOFFDING,Den nyere Filosofis Historie (Copenhagen, 1894), tr. MAYER,A Hist. of Mod. Phil. (London, 1900); FISHER,Geschichte der neueren Philosophie (Heidelberg, 1889-1901); STÖCKL,Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie (Mainz, 1888; tr. in part by FINLAY, Dublin, 1903); WEBER,History of Philosophy, tr. THILLY (New York, 1901).
CONTEMPORARY HISTORY. — EUCKEN,Geistige Strömungen der Gegenwart (Leipzig, 1901); WINDELBAND,Die Philos. im Beginn d. XX. Jahr., I (Heidelberg); CALDERON,Les courants phil. dans l'Amérique Latine (Heidelberg, 1909); CEULEMANS,Le mouvement phil. en Amérique inRev. néo-scholast. (Nov., 1909); BAUMANN,Deutsche u. ausserdeutsche Philos. der letzen Jahrzehnte (Gotha, 1903).
PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. — HEITZ,Essai hist. sur les rapp. entre la philosophie et la foi de Bérenger de Tours à S. Thomas (Paris, 1909); BRUNHES,La foi chrét. et la pil. au temps de la renaiss. caroling. (Paris, 1903); GRABMANN,Die Gesch. der scholast. methode (Freiburg, 1909).
APA citation.De Wulf, M.(1911).Philosophy. InThe Catholic Encyclopedia.New York: Robert Appleton Company.http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12025c.htm
MLA citation.De Wulf, Maurice."Philosophy."The Catholic Encyclopedia.Vol. 12.New York: Robert Appleton Company,1911.<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12025c.htm>.
Transcription.This article was transcribed for New Advent by Kevin Cawley.
Ecclesiastical approbation.Nihil Obstat. June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor.Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
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