From The Catholic Encyclopedia (1911)
Philosophy.
- I.
Definition of Philosophy.
- II.
Division of Philosophy.
- III.
The Principal Systematic Solutions.
- IV.
Philosophical Methods.
- V.
The Great Historical Currents of Thought.
- VI.
Contemporary Orientations.
- VII.
Is Progress in Philosophy Indefinite, or Is there a Philosophia Perennis?
- VIII.
Philosophy and the Sciences.
- IX.
Philosophy and Religion.
- X.
The Catholic Church and Philosophy.
- XI.
The Teaching of Philosophy.
- XII.
Bibliography
I. Definition of Philosophy.
According
to its etymology, the word "philosophy" (philosophia, from philein, to love, and sophia, wisdom) means "the
love of wisdom". This sense appears again in sapientia, the word used in the
Middle Ages to designate philosophy. In the early stages of Greek, as of every
other, civilization, the boundary line between philosophy and other departments
of human knowledge was not sharply defined, and philosophy was understood to
mean "every striving towards knowledge". 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 of nature, and such
knowledge of things human and Divine as is possible for man (P.L., CI,
952).
In
its proper acceptation, philosophy does not mean the aggregate of the human
sciences, but "the general science of things in the universe by their
ultimate determinations and reasons"; or again, "the intimate
knowledge of the causes and reasons of things", the profound knowledge 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 of knowledge", ktêsis epistêmês (Euthydemus, 288 d).
Aristotle, mightier than his master at compressing ideas, writes: tên onomazomenên sophian
peri ta procirc;ta 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 the Stoics
and Epicureans accentuated the moral bearing of philosophy ("Philosophia studium
summae virtutis", says Seneca in "Epist.", lxxxix, 7), and the
neo-Platonists its mystical bearing (see section V below). The Fathers of the
Church and the first philosophers of the Middle Ages seem not to have had a
very clear idea 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 of Scholasticism
in the thirteenth. St. Thomas, adopting the Aristotelean idea, writes:
"Sapientia est scientia quae considerat causas primas et universales
causas; sapientia causas primas omnium causarum considerat" — Wisdom [i.e.
philosophy] is the science which considers first and universal causes; wisdom
considers the first causes of all causes" (In Metaph., 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 of
truth by its first causes" (ibid.). For Locke, philosophy is the true
knowledge of things; for Berkeley, "the study of wisdom and truth" (Princ.).
The many conceptions of philosophy given by Kant reduce it to that of a science
of the general principles of knowledge and of the ultimate objects attainable
by knowledge — "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 of science
(Wissenschaftslehre). Many contemporary authors regard it as the synthetic
theory of the particular sciences: "Philosophy", says Herbert
Spencer, "is completely unified knowledge" (First Principles,
#37). Ostwald has the same idea. 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 the reason 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). This idea of philosophy
as the ultimate science 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 of
Aristotle. Face to face with nature 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 constitutes science
(see section 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 last Why's. The last Why of all rests upon all that
is and all that becomes: it does not apply, as in any one particular science
(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 its substance
(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 profound knowledge 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, says Aristotle, we know other things, but other things do
not suffice to make us know these principles (dia gar tauta kai ek toutôn
t'alla gnôrizetai, all' ou tauta dia tôn hupokeimenôn — Metaph., I). The expression universal order should be understood in the
widest sense. Man is one part of it: hence the relations of man with the world
of sense and with its Author belong to the domain of philosophy. Now man, on
the one hand, is the responsible author of these relations, because he is free,
but he is obliged by nature itself to reach an aim, which is his moral end. On
the other hand, he has the power of reflecting upon the knowledge which he
acquires of all things, and this leads him to study the logical structure of
science. Thus philosophical knowledge leads to philosophical acquaintance with
morality and logic. And hence we have this more comprehensive definition of
philosophy: "The profound knowledge of the universal order, of the duties
which that order imposes upon man, and of the knowledge which man 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 rémite"' (Mercier, "Logique", 1904, p. 23). — The development
of these same ideas under another aspect will be found in section
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
(his nature, origin, operations, moral end, and scientific 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.
A. In Greek Philosophy. — Two historical
divisions dominate Greek philosophy: the Platonic and the Aristotelean.
(1)
Plato divides philosophy into dialectic, physics, and ethics. This division is
not found in Plato's own writings, and it would be impossible to fit his
dialogues into the triple frame, but it corresponds to the spirit of the
Platonic philosophy. According to Zeller, Xenocrates (314 B.C.) his disciple,
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), and Aristotle follows it
in dividing his master's philosophy. Dialectic is the science of objective
reality, i.e., of the Idea (idea eidos), so that by Platonic dialectic
we must understand metaphysics. Physics is concerned with the manifestations of
the Idea, or with the Real, in the sensible universe, to which Plato attributes
no real value independent of that of the Idea. Ethics has for its object human
acts. Plato deals with logic, but has no system of logic; this was a product of
Aristotle's genius.
Plato's
classification was taken up by his school (the Academy), but it was not long in
yielding to the influence of Aristotle's more complete division and according a
place to logic. Following the inspirations of the old Academics, the Stoics
divided philosophy into physics (the study of the real), logic (the study of
the structure of science) and morals (the study of moral acts). This
classification was perpetuated by the neo-Platonists, who transmitted it to the
Fathers of the Church, and through them to the Middle Ages.
(2)
Aristotle, Plato's illustrious disciple, the most didactic, and at the same
time the most synthetic, mind of the Greek worid, drew up a remarkable scheme
of the divisions of philosophy. The philosophical sciences are divided into
theoretic, practical, and poetic, according as their scope is pure speculative
knowledge, 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 of extension, i.e., of a corporeal property not subject
to change and considered, by abstraction, apart from matter (akinêta men ou
chôrista d'isôs, all' hôs en hulê); (c) metaphysics, called theology, or
first philosophy, i.e. the study of being in its unchangeable and (whether
naturally or by abstraction) incorporeal determinations (chôrista kau akinêt).
Practical philosophy comprises ethics, economics, and politics, the second of
these three often merging into the last. Poetic philosophy is concerned in
general with the external works conceived by human intelligence. To these may
conveniently be added logic, the vestibule of philosophy, which Aristotle
studied at length, and of which he may be called the creator.
To
metaphysics Aristotle rightly accords the place of honour 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 the Platonic classification during the
Alexandrine period, but it reappeared during the Middle Ages.
B. In the Middle Ages. — Though the division of
philosophy into its branches is not uniform in the first period of the Middle
Ages in the West, i.e. down to the end of the twelfth century, the
classifications of this period are mostly akin to the Platonic division into
logic, ethics, and physics. Aristotle's classification of the theoretic
sciences, though made known by Boethius, exerted no influence for the reason
that in the early Middle Ages the West knew nothing of Aristotle except his
works on logic and some fragments of his speculative philosophy (see section
V below).
It should be added here that philosophy, reduced at first to dialectic, or
logic, and placed as such in the Trivium, was not long in setting itself above
the liberal arts.
The
Arab philosophers of the twelfth century (Avicenna, Averroes) accepted the
Aristotelean classification, and when their works — particularly their
translations of Aristotle's great original treatises — penetrated into the
West, the Aristotelean division definitively took its place there. Its coming
is heralded by Gundissalinus (see section XII), one of the Toletan
translators of Aristotle, and author of a treatise, "De divisione
philosophiae", which was imitated by Michael Scott and Robert Kilwardby.
St. Thomas did no more than adopt it and give it a precise scientific form.
Later on we shall see that, conformably with the medieval notion of sapientia, to each part of
philosophy corresponds the preliminary study of a group of special sciences.
The general scheme of the division of philosophy in the thirteenth century,
with St. 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 in
nature. 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 into
logic, moral philosophy, and aesthetics, 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 which human reason considers
but does not create — just as we include metaphysics also under natural
philosophy. But the order which reason 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 of moral philosophy, while the
order which the reason creates in external things through the human reason
pertains to the mechanical arts. — In "X Ethic. ad Nic.", I, lect.
i). The philosophy of nature, or speculative philosophy, is divided into
metaphysics, mathematics, and physics, 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), intelligible quantity
(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 of physics.
C. In Modern Philosophy. — The Scholastic
classification may be said, generally speaking, to have lasted, with some
exceptions, until the seventeenth century. Beginning with Descartes, we find a
multitude of classifications arising, differing in the principles which inspire
them. Kant, for instance, distinguishes metaphysics, 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), a disciple of Leibniz, who has been called the educator of Germany
in the eighteenth century. This scheme is as follows:
- (1) Logic.
- (2) Speculative Philosophy.
- Ontology, or General
Metaphysics.
- Special Metaphysics.
- Theodicy (the study of God).
- Cosmology (the study of the
World).
- Psychology (the study of
Man).
- (3) Practical Philosophy.
- Ethics
- Politics
- Economics
Wolff
broke the ties binding the particular sciences 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 the Aristotelean
classification, wherein theodicy is a chapter of metaphysics and psychology a
chapter of physics. 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 of abstraction to
which the whole universe 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, and man.
D. In Contemporary Philosophy. — The impulse received by
philosophy during the last half-century gave rise to new philosophical
sciences, in the sense that various branches have been detached from the main
stems. In psychology this phenomenon has been remarkable: criteriology, or
epistemology (the study of the certitude of knowledge) has developed into a
special study. Other branches which have formed themselves into new
psychological sciences are: physiological psychology or the study of the
physiological concomitant of psychic activities; didactics, or the science of
teaching; pedagogy, or the science of education; collective psychology and the
psychology of people (Volkerpsychologie), studying the psychic phenomena
observable in human groups as such, and in the different races. An important
section of logic (called also noetic, or canonic) is tending to sever itself
from the main body, viz., methodology, which studies the special logical
formation of various sciences. On moral philosophy, in the wide sense, have
been grafted the philosophy of law, the philosophy of society, or social
philosophy (which is much the same as sociology), 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 (from sunistêmi, 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, of Aristotle, of neo-Platonism, of Scholasticism, of
Leibniz, 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.
A. Monism, or Pantheism, and
Pluralism, Individualism, or Theism. — 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, hence monism), one All-God (pan-theos)
of whom each individual is but a member or fragment (Substantialistic
Pantheism), or else a force, or energy (Dynamic Pantheism)? Here we have an
important question of metaphysics the solution of which reacts upon all other
domains of philosophy. The system of Aristotle, of the Scholastics, and of Leibniz
are Pluralistic and Theistic; the Indian, neo-Platonic, and Hegelian are
Monistic. Monism is a fascinating explanation of the real, but it only
postpones the difficulties which it imagines itself to be solving (e.g. the
difficulty of the interaction of things), to say nothing of the objection, from
the human point of view, that it runs counter to our most deep-rooted
sentiments.
B. Objectivism and
Subjectivism. —
Does being, whether one or many, possess its own life, independent of our mind,
so that to be known by us is only accident to being, as in the objective system
of metaphysics (e.g. Aristotle, the Scholastics, Spinoza)? Or is being no other
reality than the mental 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 term metaphysics in its title. Subjectivism cannot
explain the passivity of our mental representations, which we do not draw out
of ourselves, and which therefore oblige us to infer the reality of a non-ego.
C. Substantialism and Phenomenism. — Is all reality a flux
of phenomena (Heraclitus, Berkeley, Hume, Taine), or does the manifestation
appear upon a basis, or substance, which manifests itself, and does the
phenomenon demand a noumenon (the Scholastics)? Without an underlying
substance, which we only know through the medium of the phenomenon, certain
realities, as walking, talking, are inexplicable, and such facts as memory
become absurd.
D. Mechanism and Dynamism
(Pure and Modified). —
Natural bodies are considered by some to be aggregations of homogeneous
particles of matter (atoms) receiving a movement which is extrinsic to them, so
that these bodies differ only in the number and arrangement of their atoms (the
Atomism, or Mechanism, of Democritus, Descartes, and Hobbes). Others reduce
them to specific, unextended, immaterial forces, of which extension is only the
superficial manifestation (Leibniz). Between the two is Modified Dynamism
(Aristotle), which distinguishes in bodies an immanent specific principle
(form) and an indeterminate element (matter) which is the source of limitation
and extension. This theory accounts for the specific characters of the entities
in question as well as for the reality of their extension in space.
E. Materialism, Agnosticism,
and Spiritualism. —
That everything real is material, that whatever might be immaterial would be
unreal, such is the cardinal doctrine of Materialism (the Stoics, Hobbes, De
Lamettrie). Contemporary Materialism is less outspoken: it is inspired by a
Positivist ideology (seesection VI), and asserts that, if anything
supra-material exists, it is unknowable (Agnosticism, from a and gnôsis, knowledge. Spencer,
Huxley). Spiritualism teaches that incorporeal, or immaterial, beings exist or
that they are possible (Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, the Scholastics,
Descartes, Leibniz). Some have even asserted that only spirits exist: Berkeley,
Fichte, and Hegel are exaggerated Spiritualists. The truth is that there are
bodies and spirits; among the latter we are acquainted (though less well than
with bodies) with the nature of our soul, which is revealed by the nature of
our immaterial acts, and with the nature of God, the infinite intelligence,
whose existence is demontrated by the very existence 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 the human ego.
F. Sensualism and Rationalism,
or Spiritualism. —
These are the opposite poles of the ideogenetic question, the question of the
origin of our knowledge. For Sensualism the only source of human knowledge 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 is Positivism
(John Stuart Mill, Huxley, Spencer, Comte, Taine, Littré etc.). Were this
theory true, it would follow that we can know only what falls under our senses,
and therefore cannot pronounce upon the existence or non-existence, the reality
or unreality, of the super-sensible. Positivism is more logical than
Materialism. In the New World, the term Agnosticism has been very happily
employed to indicate this attitude of reserve towards the super-sensible.
Rationalism (from ratio, reason), or Spiritualism, establishes the
existence in us of concepts higher than sensations, i.e. of abstract and
general concepts (Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, the Scholastics, Descartes,
Leibniz, Kant, Cousin etc.). Ideologic Spiritualism has won the adherence of
humanity's greatest thinkers. Upon the spirituality, or immateriality, of our
higher mental operations is based the proof of the spirituality of the
principle from which they proceed and, hence, of the immortality of the soul.
G. Scepticism, Dogmatism, and
Criticism. —
So many answers have been given to the question whether man can attain truth,
and what is the foundation of certitude, that we will not attempt to enumerate
them all. Scepticism declares reason incapable of arriving at the truth. and
holds certitude to be a purely subjective affair (Sextus Empiricus,
AEnesidemus). Dogmatism asserts that man can attain to truth, and that, in
measure to be further determined, our cognitions are certain. The motive of
certitude is, for the Traditionalists, a Divine revelation, for the Scotch
School (Reid) it is an inclination of nature to affirm the principles of common
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 of reason but of
custom" and Brunetière writes about "the bankruptcy of science and
the need of belief"); it is an affective sentiment, a necessity of wishing
that certain things may be verities (Voluntarism; Kant's Moral Dogmatism), or
the fact of living certain verities (contemporary Pragmatism and Humanism
William James, Schiller). But for others — and this is the theory which we accept
— the motive of certitude is the very evidence of the connexion which appears
between the predicate and the subject of a proposition, an evidence which the
mind perceives, but which it does not create (Moderate Dogmatism). Lastly for
Criticism, which is the Kantian solution of the problem of knowledge, evidence
is created by the mind by means of the structural functions with which every
human intellect 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 the mind. Kantian Criticism ends in excessive Idealism, which is
also called Subjectivism. or Phenomenalism, and according to which the mind
draws all its representations out of itself, both the sensory impressions and
the categories which connect them: the world becomes a mental poem, the object
is created by the subject as representation (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel).
H. 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 (see NOMINALISM,REALISM, CONCEPTUALISM).
I. Determinism and
Indeterminism. —
Has every phenomenon or fact its adequate cause in an antecedent phenomenon or
fact (Cosmic Determinism)? And, in respect to acts of the will, are they
likewise determined in all their constituent elements (Moral Determinism,
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? Most Spiritualists of all schools have adopted a
libertarian philosophy, holding that liberty alone gives the moral life an
acceptable meaning; by various arguments they have confirmed the testimony of
conscience and the data of common consent. In physical nature causation and
determinism rule; in the moral life, liberty. Others, by no means numerous,
have even pretended to discover cases of indeterminism in physical nature (the
so-called Contingentist theories, e.g. Boutroux).
J. Utilitarianism and the
Morality of Obligation. — 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 of duty for duty's sake, the observance of
law because it is law, independently of personal profit (the Formalism of the
Stoics and of Kant). According to another doctrine, which in our opinion is
more correct, utility, or personal advantage, is not incompatible with duty,
but the source of the obligation to act is in the last analysis, as the very
exigencies of our nature tell us, the ordinance of God.
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 in section
XI.
Three methods can be, and have been, applied to the construction of philosophy.
A. Experimental (Empiric, or
Analytic) Method. —
The method of aIl Empiric philosophers is to observe facts, accumulate them,
and coordinate them. Pushed to its ultimate consequences, the empirical method
refuses to rise beyond observed and observable fact; it abstains from
investigating anything that is absolute. It is found among the Materialists,
ancient and modern, and is most unreservedly applied in contemporary Positivism.
Comte opposes the "positive mode of thinking", based solely upon
observation, to the theological and metaphysical 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 general idea 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 of causality are only "generalizations from
facts of experience" (Mill, op. cit., vii, #5). According to this author,
what we believe to be superior to experience in the enunciation of scientific
laws is derived from our subjective incapacity to conceive its contradictory;
according to Spencer, this inconceivability of the negation is developed by
heredity.
Applied
in an exaggerated and exclusive fashion, the experimental method mutilates
facts, since it is powerless to ascend to the causes and the laws which govern
facts. It suppresses the character of objective necessity which is inherent in
scientific 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 unchangeable
nature of things. The empirical method, left to its own resources, checks the
upward movement of the mind towards the causes or object of the phenomena which
confront it.
B. Deductive, or Synthetic a
Priori, Method. —
At the opposite pole to the preceding, the deductive method starts from very
general principles, from higher causes, to descend (Lat. deducere, 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 an intuition of the Absolute, of the Supreme Reality —
for the Theists, God; for the Monists, the Universal Being — and to draw from
this intuition the synthetic knowledge of all that depends upon it in the
universe, in conformity with the metaphysical scale of the real. Plato is the
father of deductive philosophy: he starts from the world of Ideas, and from the
Idea of the Sovereign Good, and he would know the reality of the world of sense
only in the Ideas of which it is the reflection. St. Augustine, too, finds his
satisfaction in studying the universe, and the least of the beings which
compose it, only in a synthetic contemplation of God, the exemplary, creative,
and final cause of all things. So, too, the Middle Ages attached great
importance to the deductive method. "I propose", writes Boethius,
"to build science by means of concepts and maxims, as is done in
mathematics." Anselm of Canterbury draws from the idea of God, not only
the proof of the real existence of an infinite being, but also a group of
theorems on His attributes and His relations with the world. Two centuries
before Anselm, Scotus Eriugena, the father of anti-Scholasticism, is the
completest type of the Deductionist: his metaphysics is one long description of
the Divine Odyssey, inspired by the neo-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 century Raymond Lully believed that he had found
the secret of "the Great Art" (ars magna), a sort of
syllogism-machine, built of general tabulations of ideas, the combination of
which would give the solution of any question whatsoever. Descartes, Spinoza,
and Leibniz 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 the
Ontologists and the post-Kantian Pantheists in Germany (Fichte, Schelling,
Hegel), who base their philosophy upon an intuition of the Absolute Being.
The
deductive philosophers generally profess to disdain the sciences of
observation. Their great fault is the compromising of fact, bending it to a
preconceived explanation or theory assumed a priori, whereas the observation
of the fact ought to precede the assignment of its cause or of its adequate
reason. This defect in the deductive method appears glaringly in a youthful
work of Leibniz's, "Specimen demonstrationum politicarum pro rege
Polonorum eligendo", published anonymously in 1669, where he demonstrates
hy geometrical methods (more geometrico), in sixty propositions, that
the Count Palatine of Neuburg ought to be elected to the Polish Throne.
C. Analytico-Synthetic Method. — This combination of
analysis and synthesis, of observation and deduction, is the only method
appropriate to philosophy. Indeed, since it undertakes to furnish a general
explanation of the universal order (see section I), philosophy ought to
begin with complex effects, facts known by observation, before attempting to
include them in one comprehensive explanation of the universe. This is manifest
in psychology, where we begin with a careful examination of activities, notably
of the phenomena of sense, of intelligence, and of appetite; in cosmology,
where we observe the series of changes, superficial and profound, of bodies; in
moral philosophy, which sets out from the observation of moral facts; in
theodicy, where we interrogate religious beliefs and feelings; even in
metaphysics, the starting-point of which is really existing being. But
observation and analysis once completed, the work of synthesis begins. We must
pass onward to a synthetic psychology that shall enable us to comprehend the
destinies of man's vital principle; to a cosmology that shall explain the
constitution of bodies, their changes, and the stability of the laws which
govern them; to a synthetic moral philosophy establishing the end of man and
the ultimate ground of duty; to a theodicy and deductive metaphysics that shall
examine the attributes 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 the universe and of man by a
synthetic knowledge of God, 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 synthetic knowledge of the universe and its
first cause. The analytico-synthetic process is the method, not only of
philosophy, but of every science, for it is the natural law of thought, the
proper function of which is unified and orderly knowledge. "Sapientis est
ordinare." Aristotle, St. Thomas, Pascal, Newton, Pasteur, thus understood
the method of the sciences. Men like Helmholtz and Wundt adopted synthetic
views after doing analytical work. Even the Positivists are metaphysicians,
though they do not know 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: the Semitic and the Indo-European, to which may be added the Egyptians
and the Chinese. In the Semitic group (Arabs, Babylonians, Assyrians,
Aramaeans, Chaldeans) the Arabs are the most important; nevertheless, their
part becomes insignificant when compared with the intellectual 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 of India (since
15OO 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
Northern Europe.
A. Indian Philosophy. — The philosophy of India
is recorded principally in the sacred books of the Veda, for it has always been
closely united with religion. Its numerous poetic and religious productions
carry within themselves a chronology 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 the universe (Monism).
(2) The Period of the Brahmans (l000-500 B.C.). This is the age of Brahminical
civilization. The theory of the one Being remains, but little by little the
concrete and anthropomorphic ideas of the one Being are replaced by the
doctrine that the basis of all things is in oneself (âtman).
Psychological Monism appears in its entirety in the Upanishads: the absolute
and adequate identity of the Ego — which is the constitutive basis of our
individuality (âtman) — and of all things, with Brahman, the eternal
being exalted above time, 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
comprise metaphysics, cosmology, psychology, and ethics (transmigration,
metempsychosis). Among the systems not in harmony with the Vedic dogmas, the
most celebrated is Buddhism, a kind of Pessimism which teaches liberation from
pain in a state of unconscious repose, or an extinction of personality (Nirvâna).
Buddhism spread in China, where it lives side by side with the doctrines of Lao
Tse and that of Confucius. It is evident that even the systems which are not in
harmony with the Veda are permeated with religious ideas.
B. Greek Philosophy. — 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 to Socrates (seventh to fifth centuries B.C. —
preoccupied with cosmology) (2) Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle (fifth to fourth
centuries B.C. — psychology); (3) From the death of Aristotle to the rise of
neo-Platonism (end of the fourth century B.C. to third century after Christ —
moral philosophy); (4) neo-Platonic School (from the third century after
Christ, or, including the systems of the forerunners of neo-Platonism, from the
first century after Christ, to the end of Greek philosophy in the seventh
century-mysticism).
(1)
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, for Pythagoras
(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 of atoms in motion, and this movement,
according to Anaxagoras, has for its cause an intelligent being. (2) The Period
of Apogee: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. When the Sophists (Protagoras, Gorgias)
had demonstrated the insufficiency of these cosmologies, Socrates (470-399)
brought philosophical investigation to bear on man himself, studying man
chiefly from the moral point of view. From the presence in us of abstract ideas
Plato (427-347) deduced the existence of a world of supersensible realities or
ideas, of which the visible world is but a pale reflection. These ideas, which
the soul in an earlier life 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 of act and
potentiality, of form and matter, is a new solution of the relations between
the permanent and the changing. His psychology, founded upon the principle of
the unity of man and the substantial union of soul and body, is a creation of
genius. And as much may be said of his logic. (3) The Moral Period. After
Aristotle (end of the fourth Century B.C.) four schools are in evidence: Stoic,
Epicurean, Platonic, and Aristotelean. The Stoics (Zeno of Citium, Cleanthes,
Chrysippus), like the Epicureans, make speculation subordinate to the quest of
happiness, and the two schools, in spite of their divergencies, both consider
happiness to be ataraxia or absence of sorrow and
preoccupation. The teachings of both on nature (Dynamistic Monism with the
Stoics, and Pluralistic Mechanism with the Epicureans) are only a prologue to
their moral philosophy. After the latter half of the second century B.C. we
perceive reciprocal infiltrations between the various schools. This issues in
Eclecticism. Seneca (first century B.C.) and Cicero (106-43 B.C.) are attached
to Eclecticism with a Stoic basis; two great commentators of Aristotle,
Andronicus of Rhodes (first century B.C.) and Alexander of Aphrodisia about
200), affect a Peripatetic Eclecticism. Parallel with Eclecticism runs a
current of Scepticism (AEnesidemus, 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 Greek intellectual 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 of
Pythagorism and its alliance with Platonism (Plutarch of Chieronea, first
century B.C.; Apuleius of Madaura; Numenius, about 16O and others), and still
more in the Graeco-Judaic philosophy of Philo the Jew (30 B.C. to A.D. 50). But
the dominance of these tendencies is more apparent in neo-Platonism. The most
brilliant thinker of the neo-Platonic series is Plotinus (A.D. 20-70). In his
"Enneads" he traces the paths which lead the soul to the One, and
establishes, in keeping with his mysticism, an emanationist metaphysical
system. Porphyry of Tyre (232-304), a disciple of Plotinus, popularizes his
teaching, emphasizes its religious bearing, and makes Aristotle's
"Organon" the introduction to neo-Platonic philosophy. Later on,
neo-Platonism, emphasizing its religious features, placed itself, with
Jamblichus, at the service of the pagan pantheon which growing Christianity was
ruining on all sides, or again, as with Themistius at Constantinople (fourth
century), Proclus and Simplicius at Athens (fifth century), and Ammonius at
Alexandria, it took an Encyclopedic turn. With Ammonius and John Philoponus
(sixth century) the neo-Platonic School of Alexandria developed in the
direction of Christianity.
C. Patristic Philosophy. — In the closing years of
the second century and, still more, in the third century, the philosophy of the
Fathers of the Church was developed. It was born in a civilization dominated by
Greek ideas, chiefly neo-Platonic, and on this side its mode of thought is
still the ancient. Still, if some, like St. Augustine, attach the greatest
value to the neo-Platonic teachings, it must not be forgotten that the Monist
or Pantheistic and Emanationist ideas, which have been accentuated by the
successors of Plotinus, are carefully replaced by the theory of creation and
the substantial distinction of beings; in this respect a new spirit animates
Patristic philosophy. It was developed, too, as an auxiliary of the dogmatic
system which the Fathers were to establish. In the third century the great
representatives of the Christian School of Alexandria are Clement of Alexandria
and Origen. After them Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Ambrose,
and, above all, St. Augustine (354-430) appear. St. Augustine gathers up the
intellectual 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 and mysticism, with a study of
God as the centre of interest. In the fifth century, pseudo-Dionysius
perpetuates many a neo-Platonic doctrine adapted to Christianity, and his
writings exercise a powerful influence in the Middle Ages.
D. Medieval Philosophy. — The philosophy of the
Middle 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 of Aristotle, except some treatises on logic, or of
Plato, except a few dialogues. Gradually, problems arose, and, foremost, in
importance, the question of universals in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh
centuries (see NOMINALISM). St. Anselm (1O33-1109) made a first attempt at
systematizing Scholastic philosophy, and developed a theodicy. But as early as
the ninth century an anti-Scholastic philosophy had arisen with Eriugena who
revived the neo-Platonic Monism. In the twelfth century Scholasticism
formulated new anti-Realist doctrines with Adelard of Bath, Gauthier de
Mortagne, and, above all, Abelard and Gilbert de la Porrée, whilst extreme
Realism took shape in the schools of Chartres. John of Salisbury and Alain de
Lille, in the twelfth century, are the co-ordinating minds that indicate the
maturity of Scholastic thought. The latter of these waged a campaign against
the Pantheism of David of Dinant and the Epicureanism of the Albigenses — the
two most important forms of anti-Scholastic philosophy. At Byzantium, Greek
philosophy held its ground throughout the Middle Ages, and kept apart from the
movement of Western ideas. The same is true of the Syrians and Arabs. 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 the University of Paris; next, to the
foundation of the Dominican and Franciscan orders; lastly, to the introduction
of Arabic and Latin translations of Aristotle and the ancient authors. At the
same period the works of Avicenna and Averroes became known at Paris. 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, and Duns Scotus — bring Scholastic synthesis to
perfection. They all wage war on Latin Averroism and anti-Scholasticism,
defended in the schools of Paris by Siger of Brabant. Roger Bacon, Lully, and a
group of neo-Platonists occupy a place apart in this century, which is
completely filled by remarkable figures. In the fourteenth century Scholastic
philosophy betrays the first symptoms of decadence. In place of individualities
we have schools, the chief being the Thomist, the Scotist, and the Terminist
School of William of Occam, which soon attracted numerous partisans. With John
of Jandun, Averroism perpetuates its most audacious propositions; Eckhart and
Nicholas of Cusa formulate philosophies which are symptomatic of the
approaching revolution. The Renaissance was a troublous period for philosophy.
Ancient systems were revived: the Dialectic of the Humanistic philologists
(Laurentius Valla, Vivés), Platonism, Aristoteleanism, Stoicism. Telesius,
Campanella, and Giordano Bruno follow a naturalistic philosophy. Natural and
social law are renewed with Thomas More and Grotius. All these philosophies
were leagued together against Scholasticism, and very often against
Catholicism. On the other hand, the Scholastic philosophers grew weaker and
weaker, and, excepting for the brilliant Spanish Scholasticism of the sixteenth
century (Bañez, Suarez, Vasquez, and so on), it may be said that ignorance of
the fundamental doctrine became general. In the seventeenth century there was
no one to support Scholasticism: it fell, not for lack of ideas, but for lack
of defenders.
E. Modern Philosophy. — The philosophies of the
Renaissance are mainly negative: modern philosophy is, first and foremost,
constructive. The latter is emancipated from all dogma; many of its syntheses
are powerful; the definitive formation of the various nationalities and the
diversity of languages favour the tendency to individualism. The two great
initiators of modern philosophy are Descartes and Francis Bacon. The former
inaugurates a spiritualistic philosophy based on the data of consciousness, and
his influence may be traced in Malebranche, Spinoza, and Leibniz. Bacon heads a
line of Empiricists, who regarded sensation as the only source of knowledge. In
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a Sensualist philosophy grew up in
England, based on Baconian Empiricism, and soon to develop in the direction of
Subjectivism. Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and David Hume mark the stages of this
logical evolution. Simultaneously an Associationist psychology appeared also
inspired by Sensualism, and, before long, it formed a special field of
research. Brown, David Hartley, and Priestley developed the theory of
association of ideas in various directions. At the outset Sensualism
encountered vigorous opposition, even in England, from the Mystics and
Platonists 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 over Eclectic Spiritualism, chiefly in America and France.
Hobbes's "selfish" system was developed into a morality by Bentham, a
partisan of Egoistic Utilitarianism, and by Adam Smith, a defender of Altruism,
but provoked a reaction among the advocates of the moral sentiment theory
(Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Samuel Clarke). In England, also, Theism or Deism was chiefly
developed, instituting a criticism of all positive religion, which it sought to
supplant with a philosophical religion. English Sensualism spread in France
during the eighteenth century: its influence is traceable in de Condillac, de
la Mettrie, and the Encyclopedists; Voltaire popularized it in France and with
Jean-Jacques Rousseau it made its way among the masses, undermining their
Christianity and preparing the Revolution of 1759. In Germany, the philosophy
of the eighteenth century is, directly or indirectly, connected with Leibniz —
the School of Wolff, the Aesthetic School (Baumgarten), the philosophy of
sentiment. But all the German philosophers of the eighteenth century were
eclipsed by the great figure of Kant.
With
Kant (1724-1804) modern philosophy enters its second period and takes a
critical orientation. Kant bases his theory of knowledge, his moral and
aesthetic system, and his judgments of finality on the structure of the mind.
In the first half of the eighteenth century, German philosophy is replete with
great names connected with Kantianism — after it had been put through a
Monistic evolution, however — Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel have been called the
triumvirate of Pantheism; then again, Schopenhauer, while Herbart returned to
individualism. French philosophy in the nineteenth century is at first
dominated by an eclectic Spiritualistic movement with which the names of Maine
de Biran and, especially, Victor Cousin are associated. Cousin had disciples in
America (C. Henry), and in France he gained favour with those whom the excesses
of the Revolution had alarmed. In the first half of the nineteenth century
French Catholics approved the Traditionalism inaugurated by de Bonald and de
Lamennais, while another group took refuge in Ontologism. In the same period
Auguste Comte founded Positivism, to which Littré 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 of Positivism; 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 human sciences. The Associationist
philosophy at this time was confronted by the Scotch philosophy which, in
Hamilton, combined the teachings of Reid and of Kant and found an American
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 of Positivism, the dominant philosophy in
England. Lastly, in Italy, Hegel was for a long time the leader of
nineteenth-century philosophical thought (Vera and d'Ercole), whilst Gioberti,
the ontologist and Rosmini occupy a distinct position. More recently,
Positivism has gained numerous adherents in Italy. In the middle of the
century, a large Krausist School existed in Spain, represented chiefly by Sanz
del Rio (d. 1869) and N. Salmeron. Balmes (181O-48), the author of
"Fundamental Philosophy" is an original thinker whose doctrines have
many points of contact with Scholasticism.
A. Favourite Problems. — 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 day
psychological 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 he obliges his successors to deal with the
preliminary and fundamental question of the limits of knowledge. On the other
hand the experimental investigation of mental processed has become the object
of a new study, psycho-physiology, in which men of science co-operate with
philosophers, and which meets with increasing success. This study figures in
the programme of most modern universities. Originating at Leipzig (the School
of Wundt) and Würzburg, it has quickly become naturalized in Europe and
America. In America, "The Psychological Review" has devoted many
articles to this branch of philosophy. Psychological studies are the chosen
field of the American (Ladd, William James, Hall).
The
great success of psychology has emphasized the subjective character of
aesthetics, in which hardly anyone now recognizes the objective and
metaphysical element. The solutions in vogue are the Kantian, which represents the
aesthetic judgment as formed in accordance with the subjective, structural
function of the mind, or other psychologic solutions which reduce the beautiful
to a psychic impression (the "sympathy", or Einfühlung, 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 the aesthetic
impression and enjoyment. It may be said that the neo-Scholastic philosophy
alone takes into account the objective aesthetic factor.
The
absorbing influence of psychology also manifests itself to the detriment of
other branches of philosophy; first of all, to the detriment of metaphysics,
which our contemporaries have unjustly ostracized — unjustly, since, if the
existence 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 of metaphysics, moreover, is largely due to misconception and to a
wrong understanding of the theories of substance, of faculties, of causes etc.,
which belong to the traditional metaphysics. Then again, the invasion of
psychology is manifest in logic: side by side with the ancient logic or
dialectic, a mathematical or symbolic logic has developed (Peano, Russell,
Peirce, Mitchell, and others) and, more recently, a genetic logic which would
study, not the fixed laws of thought, but the changing process of mental life
and its genesis (Baldwin).
We
have seen above (section II, D) how the increasing cultivation of
psychology has produced other scientific 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 is Positivist, there is a desire to get rid of
the old morality, with its notions of value and of duty, 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 of Hegel, 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; by Denifle, Hauréau, Bäumker, and Mandonnet, on the Middle Ages; by
Windelband, Kuno Fischer, Boutroux and Höffding, on the modern period; and the
list might easily be considerably prolonged.
B. The Opposing Systems. — The rival systems of
philosophy of the present time may be reduced to various groups: Positivism,
neo-Kantianism, Monism, neo-Scholasticism. Contemporary philosophy lives in an
atmosphere of Phenomenism, since Positivism and neo-Kantianism are at one on
this important doctrine: that science and certitude are possible only within
the limits of the world of phenomena, which is the immediate object of
experience. Positivism, insisting on the exclusive rights of sensory
experience, and Kantian criticism, reasoning from the structure of our
cognitive faculties, hold that knowledge extends only as far as appearances;
that beyond this is the absolute, the dark depths, the existence of which there
is less and less disposition to deny, but which no human mind can fathom. On
the contrary, this element of the absolute forms an integral constituent in
neo-Scholasticism revived, with sobriety and moderation, the fundamental
notions of Aristotelean and Medieval metaphysics, and has succeeded in
vindicating them against attack and objection.
(1)
Positivism, under various forms, is defended in England by the followers of
Spencer, by Huxley, Lewes, Tyndall, F. Harrison, Congreve, Beesby, J. Bridges,
Grant Allen (James Martineau is a reactionary against Positivism); by Balfour,
who at the same time propounds a characteristic theory of belief, and falls
back on Fideism. From England Positivism passed over to America, where it soon
dethroned the Scottish doctrines (Carus). De Roberty, in Russia, and Ribot, in
France, are among its most distinguished disciples. In Italy it is found in the
writings of Ferrari, Ardigo, and Morselli; in Germany, in those of Laas, Riehl,
Guyau, and Durkheim. Less brutal than Materialism, the radical vice of
Positivism is its identification of the knowable with the sensible. It seeks in
vain to reduce general ideas to collective images, and to deny the abstract and
universal character of the mind's concepts. It vainly denies the
super-experiential value of the first logical principles in which the
scientific life of the mind 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. In morals, where it would reduce
precepts and judgments to sociological data formed in the collective conscience
and varying with the period and the environment, Positivism stumbles against
the judgments of value, and the supersensible ideas of obligation, moral good,
and law, recorded in every human conscience and unvarying in their essential
data.
(2)
Kantianism had been forgotten in Germany for some thirty years (1830-60); Vogt,
Büchner, and Molesehott had won for Materialism an ephemeral vogue; but
Materialism was swept away by a strong Kantian reaction. This reversion towards
Kant (Rückkehr zu Kant) begins to be traceable in 1860 (notably as a
result of Lange's "History of Materialism"), and the influence of
Kantian 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 with Kant's second
"Critique" and introduced a specific Voluntarism. Vacherot, Secrétan,
Lachelier, Boutroux, Fouillée, and Bergson are all more or less under tribute
to Kantianism. Ravaisson proclaims himself a follower of Maine de Biran.
Kantianism has taken its place in the state programme of education and Paul
Janet, who, with F. Bouillier and Caro, was among the last legatees of Cousin's
Spiritualism, appears, in his "Testament philosophique", affecting a
Monism with a Kantian inspiration. All those who, with Kant and the
Positivists, proclaim the "bankruptcy of science" look for the basis
of our certitude in an imperative demand of the will. This Voluntarism, also
called Pragmatism (William James), and, quite recently, Humanism (Schiller at
Oxford), is inadequate to the establishment of the theoretic moral and social
sciences 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.
From
Germany and France Kantianism has spread everywhere. In England it has called
into activity the Critical Idealism associated with T. H. Green and Bradley.
Hodgson, on the contrary, returns to Realism. S. Laurie may be placed between
Green and Martineau. Emerson, Harris, Everett, and Royce spread Idealistic
Criticism in America; Shadworth Hodgson, on the other hand, and Adamson tend to
return to Realism, whilst James Ward emphasizes the function of the will.
(3)
Monism. — With a great many Kantians, a stratum of Monistic ideas is
superimposed on Criticism, the thing in itself being considered numerically
one. The same tendencies are observable among Positivist Evolutionists like
Clifford and Romanes, or G. T. Ladd.
(4)
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 under Leo XIII, is tending more and more to become
the philosophy of Catholics. It replaces Ontologism, Traditionalism, Gunther's
Dualism, and Cartesian Spiritualism, which had manifestly become insufficient.
Its syntheses, renewed and completed, can be set up in opposition to Positivism
and Kantianism, and even its adversaries no longer dream of denying the worth
of its doctrines. The bearings of neo-Scholasticism have been treated elsewhere
(see NEO-SCHOLASTICISM).
Considering
the historic succession of systems and the evolution of doctrines from the
remotest ages of India down to our own times, and standing face to face with
the progress achieved by contemporary scientific philosophy, must we not infer
the indefinite progress of philosophic thought? Many have allowed themselves to
be led away by this ideal dream. Historic Idealism (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 the soul", 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 serious
error. 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 like Aristotle and Plato three centuries before Christ,
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 own
time. 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. If
Kant found an original formula of Subjectivism and the reine Innerlichkeit, it would be a mistake to
think that Kant had no intellectual ancestors: he had them in the earliest
historic ages of philosophy: M. Deussen has found in the Vedic hymn 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
is false to say that all truth is relative to a given time and latitude, and
that philosophy is the product of economic conditions in a ceaseless course of
evolution, as historical Materialism holds. Side by side with these things,
which are subject to change and belong to one particular condition of the life
of mankind, there is a soul of truth circulating in every system, a mere
fragment of that complete and unchangeable truth which haunts the human mind in
its most disinterested investigations. Amid the oscillations of historic
systems there is room for a philosophia perennis — as it were a purest
atmosphere of truth, enveloping the ages, its clearness somehow felt in spite
of cloud and mist. "The truth Pythagoras sought after, and Plato, and
Aristotle, is the same that Augustine and Aquinas pursued. So far as it is
developed in history, truth is the daughter of time; so far as it bears within
itself a content independent of time, and therefore of history, it is the
daughter of eternity" [Willmann, "Gesch. d Idealismus", II
(Brunswick, 1896), 55O; cf. Commer "Die immerwahrende Philosophie"
(Vienna, 1899)]. This does not mean that essential and permanent verities do
not adapt themselves to the intellectual life of each epoch. Absolute
immobility in philosophy, no less than absolute relativity, is contrary to
nature 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 that
astronomy, mineralogy, physics and chemistry, biology, zoology, furnished him
with examples and bases for his theories on the constitution, of the heavenly
and terrestrial bodies, the nature of the vital principle, etc. Besides, the
whole Aristotelean classification of the branches of philosophy (see section
II)
is inspired by the same idea of making philosophy — general science — rest upon
the particular sciences. The early Middle Ages, with a rudimentary scientific
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, when Scholasticism came under
Aristotelean influences, it incorporated the sciences in the programme of
philosophy itself. This may be seen in regulation issued by the Faculty of Arts
of Paris 19 March, 1255, "De libris qui legendi essent" This order
prescribes the study of commentaries or various scientific treatises of
Aristotle, 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 the magistri to familiarize the
"artists" with astronomy, botany, physiology, and zoology to say
nothing of Aristotle's "Physics", which was also prescribed as a
classical text, and which afforded opportunities for numerous observations in
chemistry and physics as then understood. Grammar and rhetoric served as
preliminary studies to logic, Bible history, social science, and politics were
introductory to moral philosophy. Such men as Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon
expressed their views on the necessity of linking the sciences with philosophy
and preached it by example. So that both antiquity and the Middle Ages knew and
appreciated scientific philosophy.
In
the seventeenth century the question of the relation between the two enters
upon a new phase: from this period modern science takes shape and begins that
triumphal march which it is destined to continue through the twentieth century,
and of which the human mind is justly proud. Modern scientific knowledge
differs from that of antiquity and the Middle Ages in three important respects:
the multiplication of sciences; their independent value; the divergence between
common knowledge and scientific knowledge. In the Middle Ages astronomy was
closely akin to astrology, chemistry to alchemy, physics to divination; modern
science has severely excluded all these fantastic connexions. 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, the sciences
have acquired autonomy; useful in the Middle Ages only as a preparation for
rational physics and for metaphysics, 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 particular science brings one more
revolution in knowledge. So long as instruments of observation were imperfect,
and inductive methods restricted, it was practically impossible to rise above
an elementary knowledge. People knew, in the Middle 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 an Albertus
Magnus or a Roger Bacon could flatter himself, in those days, with having
acquired all the science of his time, a claim which would now only provoke a
smile. In every department progress has drawn the line sharply between popular
and scientific knowledge; the former is ordinarily the starting-point of the
latter, but the conclusions and teachings involved in the sciences are
unintelligible to those who lack the requisite preparation.
Do
not, then, these profound modifications in the condition of the sciences entail
modifications in the relations which, until the seventeenth century, had been
accepted as existing between the sciences and philosophy? Must not the
separation of philosophy and science widen out to a complete divorce? Many have
thought so, both scientists 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
particular sciences, they say, multiplying and becoming perfect, must exhaust
the whole field of the knowable, and a time will come when philosophy shall be
no more. For the philosophers, philosophy has no need of the immeasurable mass
of scientific notions which have been acquired, many of which possess only a
precarious and provisional value. Wolff, who pronounced the divorce of science
from philosophy, did most to accredit this view, and he has been followed by
certain Catholic philosophers who held that scientific study may be excluded
from philosophic culture.
What
shall we say on this question? That the reasons which formerly existed for
keeping touch with science are a thousand times more imperative in our day. If
the profound synthetic view of things which justifies the existence of
philosophy presupposes analytical researches, the multiplication and perfection
of those researches is certainly reason for neglecting them. The horizon of
detailed knowledge widens incessantly; research of every kind is busy exploring
the departments of the universe which it has mapped out. And philosophy, whose
mission is to explain the order of the universe 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 the matter 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 visits libraries, churches, palaces, and museums, one after another.
If the city grows and develops, there is all the more reason, if we would know
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 a scientific 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 of ideas has been adopted. "This union", says Boutroux, speaking
of the sciences and philosophy, "is in truth the classic tradition of
philosophy. But there had been established a psychology and a metaphysics which
aspired to set themselves up beyond the sciences, by mere reflection of the
mind upon itself. Nowadays all philosophers are agreed to make scientific 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 general science whose function it is
to unite ia a system free of all contradictions the knowledge acquired through
the particular sciences, and to reduce to their principles the general methods
of science and the conditions of knowledge 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 more conscious are we of the lack of an adequately comprehensive
explanation" — " Gesammelte Aufsatze zur Philos. u.
Lebensanschanung" (Leipzig, 1903), p. 157]. This same thought inspired Leo
XIII when he placed the parallel and harmonious teaching of philosophy and of
the sciences on the programme of the Institute of Philosophy created by him in
the University of Louvain (see NEO-SCHOLASTICISM).
On
their side, the scientists have been coming to the same conclusions ever since
they rose to a synthetic view of that matter which is the object of their
study. So it was with Pasteur, so with Newton. Ostwald, professor of chemistry
at Leipzig, has undertaken to publish the "Annalen der
Naturphilosophie", a review devoted to the cultivation of the territory
which is common to philosophy and the sciences A great many men of science,
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
of matter.
If
philosophy is the explanation as a whole of that world which the particular
sciences investigate in detail, it follows that the latter find their
culmination in the former, and that as the sciences are so will philosophy be.
It is true that objections are put forward against this way of uniting
philosophy and the sciences. Common observation, it is said, is enough support
for philosophy. This is a mistake: philosophy cannot ignore whole departments
of knowledge which are inaccessible to ordinary experience biology, for
example, has shed a new light on the philosophic study of man. Others again
adduce the extent and the growth of the sciences to show that scientific
philosophy must ever remain an unattainable ideal; the practical solution of
this difficulty concerns the teaching of philosophy (see section
XI).
Religion
presents to man, with authority, the solution of man's problems which also
concern philosophy. Such are the questions of the nature of God, of His
relation with the visible world, of man's origin and destiny Now religion,
which precedes philosophy in the social life, naturally obliges it to take into
consideration the points of religious doctrine. Hence the close connexion 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 the doctrine 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 of pagan religions; in fact,
they combined with extreme scrupulosity in what concerned ceremonial usage a
wide liberty in regard to dogma. Greek thought soon took its independent flight
Socrates ridicules the gods in whom the common people believed; Plato does not
banish religious ideas from his philosophy; but Aristotle keeps them entirely
apart, his God is the Actus purus, with a meaning exclusively philosophic, the
prime mover of the universal mechanism. The Stoics point out that all things
obey an irresistible fatality and that the wise man fears no gods. And if
Epicurus teaches cosmic determinism and denies all finality, it is only to
conclude that man can lay aside all fear of divine intervention in mundane
affairs. The question takes a new aspect when the influences of the Oriental
and Jewish religions are brought to bear on Greek philosophy by
neo-Pythagorism, the Jewish theology (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 after Christ), who must always remain the most perfect
type of the neo-Platonic mentality, makes philosophy identical with religion,
assigning as its highest aim the union of the soul with God by mystical ways.
This mystical need of the supernatural issues in the most bizarre lucubrations
from Plotinus's successors, e.g. Jamblicus (d. about A.D. 330), who, on a
foundation of neo-Platonism, erected an international pantheon for all the
divinities whose names are known.
It
has often been remarked that Christianity, with its monotheistic dogma and its
serene, purifying morality, came in the fulness of time and appeased the inward
unrest with which souls were afflicted at the end of the Roman world. Though
Christ did not make Himself the head of a philosophical school, the religion
which He founded supplies solutions for a group of problems which philosophy
solves by other methods (e.g. the immortality of the soul). The first Christian
philosophers the Fathers of the Church, were imbued with Greek ideas and took
over from the circumambient neo-Platonism the commingling of philosophy and religion.
With them philosophy is incidental and secondary, employed only to meet polemic
needs, and to support dogma; their philosophy is religious. In this Clement of
Alexandria and Origen are one with St. Augustine and Pseudo-Dionysius the
Areopagite. The early Middle Ages continued the same traditions, and the first
philosophers may be said to have received neo-Platonic influences through the
channel of the Fathers. John Scotus Eriugena (ninth century), the most
remarkable mind of this first period, writes that "true religion is true
philosophy and, conversely, true philosophy is true 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 two sciences of Scholastic theology
or the study of dogma, based fundamentally on Holy Scripture, and Scholastic
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 early Middle Ages, must be
sought within the domain of theology, in the sense that the philosophical
discussions arose in reference to theological questions. The discussion, e.g.
of transubstantiation (Berengarius of Tours), raised the problem of substance
and of change, or becoming. (2) Theology being regarded as a superior and
sacred science, the whole pedagogic and didactic organization of the period
tended to confirm this superiority (see section 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 discussing theological subjects, claimed absolute
validity for their methods, and they ended in such heresies as Gottschalk's on
predestination, Berengarius's on transubstantiation, and Roscelin's Tritheism.
Berengarius's motto was: "Per omnia ad dialecticam confugere". There
followed an excessive reaction on the part of timorous theologians, practical
men before all things, who charged dialectics with the sins of the
dialecticians. This antagonistic movement coincided with an attempt to reform
religious life. At the head of the group was Peter Damian (1007-72), the
adversary of the liberal arts; he was the author of the saying that philosophy
is the handmaid of theology. From this saying it has been concluded that the
Middle Ages in general put philosophy under tutelage, whereas the maxim was
current only among a narrow circle of reactionary theologians. Side by side
with Peter Damian in Italy, were Manegold of Lautenbach and Othloh of St.
Emmeram, in Germany.
(4)
At the same time a new tendency becomes discernible in the eleventh century, in
Lanfranc, William of Hirschau, Rodulfus Ardens, and particularly St. Anselm of
Canterbury; the theologian calls in the aid of philosophy to demonstrate
certain dogmas or to show their rational side. St. Anselm, in an Augustinian
spirit, attempted this justification of dogma, without perhaps invariably
applying to the demonstrative value of his arguments the requisite limitations.
In the thirteenth century these efforts resulted in a new theological method,
the dialectic.
(5)
While these disputes as to the relations of philosophy and theology went on,
many philosophical questions were nevertheless treated on their own account, as
we have seen above (universals, St. Anselm's theodicy, Abelard's philosophy,
etc.).
(6)
The dialectic method, developed fully in the twelfth century, just when
Scholastic theology received a powerful impetus, is a theological, not a philosophical,
method. The principal method in theology is the interpretation of Scripture and
of authority; the dialectic method is secondary and consists in first
establishing a dogma and then showing its reasonableness, confirming the
argument from authority by the argument from reason. It is a process of
apologetics. From the twelfth century onward, these two theological methods are
fairly distinguished by the words auctoritates, rationes. Scholastic theology,
condensed in the "summae" and "books of sentences", is
henceforward regarded as distinct from philosophy. The attitude of theologians
towards philosophy is threefold: one group, the least influential, still
opposes its introduction into theology, 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 of dogma (Peter Lombard); a third group, the most influential, since it
includes the three theological schools of St. Victor, Abelard, and Gilbert de
la Porrée, grants to philosophy, in addition to this apologetic role, an
independent value which entitles it to be cultivated and studied for its own
sake. The members of this group are at once both theologians and philosophers.
(7)
At the opening of the thirteenth century one section of Augustinian theologians
continued to emphasize the utilitarian and apologetic office of philosophy. But
St. Thomas Aquinas created new Scholastic traditions, and wrote a chapter on
scientific methodology in which the distinctness and in dependence of the two
sciences is thoroughly established. Duns Scotus, again, and the Terminists
exaggerated this independence. Latin Averroism, which had a brilliant but
ephemeral vogue in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, accepted whole and
entire in philosophy Averroistic Peripateticism, and, to safeguard Catholic
orthodoxy, took refuge behind the sophism that what is true in philosophy may
be false in theology, and conversely — wherein they were more reserved than
Averroes and the Arab philosophers, who regarded religion as something
inferior, good enough for the masses, and who did not trouble themselves about
Moslem orthodoxy. Lully, going to extremes, maintained that all dogma is
susceptible of demonstration, and that philosophy and theology coalesce. Taken
as a whole, the Middle Ages, profoundly religious, constantly sought to
reconcile its philosophy with the Catholic Faith. This bond the Renaissance
philosophy severed. In the Reformation period a group of publicists, in view of
the prevailing strife, formed projects of reconciliation among the numerous
religious bodies. They convinced themselves that all religions possess a common
fund of essential truths relating to God, and that their content is identical,
in spite of divergent dogmas. Besides, Theism, being only a form of Naturism
applied to religion, suited the independent ways of the Renaissance. As in
building up natural law, human nature was taken into consideration, so reason
was interrogated to discover religious ideas. And hence the wide acceptance of
Theism, not among Protestants only, but generally among minds that had been
carried away with the Renaissance movement (Erasmus, Coornheert).
For
this tolerance or religious indifferentism modern philosophy in more than one
instance substituted a disdain of positive religions. The English Theism or
Deism 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 the existence of God and the
immortality of the soul. 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 in England was taken up
in France, where it combined with an outright hatred of Catholicism. Pierre
Bayle (1646-17O6) propounded the thesis that all religion is anti-rational and
absurd, and that a state composed of Atheists is possible. Voltaire wished to
substitute for Catholicism an incoherent mass of doctrines about God. The
religious philosophy of the eighteenth century in France led to Atheism and
paved the way for the Revolution. In justice to contemporary philosophy it must
be credited with teaching the amplest tolerance towards the various religions;
and in its programme of research it has included religious psychology, or the
study of the religious sentiment.
For
Catholic philosophy the relations between philosophy and theology, between
reason and faith, were fixed, in a chapter of scientific methodology, by the
great Scholastic 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 to theology, as in regard to any
other science whatsoever, is only an interpretation of this undeniable
principle of scientific progress, as applicable in the twentieth century as it
was in the thirteenth, that a rightly constituted science derives its formal
object, its principles, and its constructive method from its own resources, and
that, this being so, it cannot borrow from any other science without
compromising its own right to exist. (b) Negative, not positive, material, not
formal, subordination of philosophy in regard to theology. — This means that,
while the two sciences 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 by theology. The
Scholastics of the Middle Ages justified this subordination, being profoundly
convinced that Catholic dogma contains the infallible word of God, the
expression of truth. Once a proposition, e.g. that two and two make four, has
been accepted as certain, logic forbids any other science to form any
conclusion subversive of that proposition. The material mutual subordination of
the sciences is one of those laws out of which logic makes the indispensable
guarantee of the unity of knowledge. "The truth duly demonstrated by one
science serves as a beacon in another science." The certainty of a theory
in chemistry imposes its acceptance on physics, and the physicist who should go
contrary to it would be out of his course. Similarly, the philosopher cannot
contradict the certain data of theology, any more than he can contradict the
certain conclusions of the individual sciences. To deny this would be to deny
the conformity of truth with truth, to contest the principle of contradiction,
to surrender to a relativism which is destructive of all certitude. "It
being supposed that nothing but what is true is included in this science (sc.
theology) . . . it being supposed that whatever is true by the decision and
authority of this science can nowise be false by the decision of right reason:
these things, I say, being supposed, as it is manifest from them that the
authority of this science and reason alike rest upon truth, and one verity cannot
be contrary to another, it must be said absolutely that reason can in no way be
contrary to the authority of this Scripture, nay, all right reason is in accord
with it" (Henry of Ghent, "Summa Theologica", X, iii, n.4).
But
when is a theory certain? This is a question of fact, and error 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 of
theological data, any more than to fix the conclusions of chemistry or of
physiology. The certainty of those data and those conclusions must proceed from
another source. "The preconceived idea is entertained that a Catholic
savant is a soldier in the service of his religious faith, and that, in his
hands, science is but a weapon to defend his Credo. In the eyes of a great many
people, the Catholic savant seems to be always under the menace of
excommunication, or entangled in dogmas which hamper him, and compelled, for
the sake of loyalty to his Faith, to renounce the disinterested love of science
and its free cultivation" (Mercier, "Rapport sur les études supér. de
philos.", 1891, p. 9). Nothing could be more untrue.
X. The Catholic Church and Philosophy.
The
principles which govern the doctrinal relations of philosophy and theology have
moved the Catholic Church to intervene on various occasions in the history of
philosophy. As to the Church's right and duty to intervene for the purpose of
maintaining the integrity of theological dogma and the deposit of faith, there
is no need of discussion in this place. It is interesting, however, to note the
attitude taken by the Church towards philosophy throughout the ages, and
particularly in the Middle Ages, when a civilization saturated with
Christianity had established extremely intimate relations between theology and
philosophy.
A.
The censures of the Church have never fallen upon philosophy as such, but upon
theological applications, judged false, which were based upon philosophical
reasonings. John Scotus Eriugena, Roscelin, Berengarius, Abelard, Gilbert de la
Porrée were condemned because their teachings tended to subvert theological
dogmas. Eriugena denied the substantial distinction between God and created
things; Roscelin held that there are three Gods; Berengarius, that there is no
real transubstantiation in the Eucharist; Abelard and Gilbert de la Porrée
essentially modified the dogma of the Trinity. The Church, through her
councils, condemned their theological errors; with their philosophy as such she
does not concern herself. "Nominalism", says Hauréau, "is the
old enemy. It is, in fact, the doctrine which, because it best accords with
reason, is most remote from axioms of faith. Denounced before council after
council, Nominalism was condemned in the person of Abelard as it had been in
the person of Roscelin" (Hist. philos. scol., I, 292).
No
assertion could be more inaccurate. What the Church has condemned is neither
the so-called Nominalism, nor Realism, nor philosophy in general, nor the
method of arguing in theology, 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 of
Roscelin and Abelard, and no councils were convoked to condemn them. The same
may be said of the condemnation of David of Dinant (thirteenth century), who
denied the distinction between God 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,
of Rosmini, and of Ontologism in the nineteenth century, what alarmed the
Church was the fact that the theses in question had a theologic: bearing.
B.
The Church has never imposed any philosophical system, though she has
anathematized many doctrines, or branded them as suspect. — This corresponds
with the prohibitive, but not imperative attitude of theology in regard to
philosophy. To take one example, faith teaches that the world was created in
time; and yet St. Thomas maintains that the concept of eternal creation (ab
aeterno) involves no contradiction. He did not think himself obliged to
demonstrate creation in time: his teaching would have been heterodox only if,
with the Averroists his day, he had maintained the necessary eternity of the
world. It may, perhaps, be objected that many Thomistic doctrines were
condemned in 1277 by Etienne Tempier, Bishop of Paris. But it is well to note,
and recent works on the subject have abundantly proved this, that Tempier's
condemnation, in so far as it applied to Thomas Aquinas, was the issue of
intrigues and personal animosity, and that, in canon law, it had no force
outside of the Diocese of Paris. Moreover, it was annulled by one of Tempier's
successors, Etienne de Borrète, in 1325.
C.
The Church has encouraged philosophy. — To say nothing of the fact that all
those who applied themselves to science and philosophy in the Middle Ages were
churchmen, and that the liberal arts found an asylum in capitular and monastic
schools until the twelfth century, it is important to remark that the principal
universities of the Middle Ages were pontifical foundations. This was the case
with Paris. To be sure, in the first years of the university's aquaintance with
the Aristotelean 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 circumstanccs. In 1231, Gregory IX laid
upon a commission of three consultors the charge to prepare an amended edition
of Aristotle "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, the Faculty of Arts, with the knowledge 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 the popes have
encouraged philosophic studies. Leo XIII, as is well known, considered the
restoration of philosophic Thomism on of the chief tasks of his pontificate.
XI. The Teaching of Philosophy.
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 as Socratic irony
and the maieutic art (maieutikê techne), the art of delivering minds of
their conceptions. His successor opened schools properly so called, and from
the place occupied by these schools several systems took their names (the Stoic
School, the Academy, the Lyceum). In the Middle Ages and down to the
seventeenth century the learned language was Latin. The German discourses of
Eckhart are mentioned as merely sporadic examples. From the ninth to the
twelfth century teaching was confined to the monastic and cathedral schools. It
was the golden age of schools. Masters and students went from one school to
another: Lanfranc travelled over Europe; John of Salisbury (twelfth century)
heard at Paris 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 the time of Abelard 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 a solutio. The application of this method was extended
in the thirteenth century (e.g. in the "Summa theologica" of St.
Thomas). Lastly, philosophy being an educational preparation for theology, the
"Queen of the Sciences", philosophical and theological 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, the
University of Paris was organized, and philosophical teaching was concentrated
in the Faculty of Arts. Teaching was dominated by two principles: internationalism and freedom. The student was an
apprentice-professor: after receiving the various degrees, he obtained from the
chancellor of the university a licence to teach (licentia docendi). Many
of the courses of this period have been preserved, the abbreviated script of
the Middle Ages being virtually a stenographic system. The programme of courses
drawn up in 1255 is well known: it comprises the exegesis of all the books of
Aristotle. The commentary, or lectio (from legere, to read), is the ordinary
form of instruction (whence the German Vorlesungen and the English lecture). 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. The University of Paris was the model
for all the others, notably those of Oxford and Cambridge. These forms of
instruction in the universities lasted as long as Aristoteleanism, i.e. until
the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century — the siècle 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 the universities and in
the seminaries, 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.
A. The Language of Philosophy. — The earliest of the
moderns — as Descartes or Leibniz — used both Latin and the vernacular, but in
the nineteenth century (except in ecclesiastical 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, particularly Scholastic, 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 many Catholic philosophers,
often of the highest worth, still do — have the sad experience of seeing their
books confined to a very narrow circle of readers.
B. Didactic Processes. — Aristotle's advice,
followed by the Scholastics, 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 (see section II). The introduction of
laboratories and practical seminaries (séminaires practiques) in philosophical
teaching has been of the greatest advantage. Side by side with libraries and
shelves full of periodicals there is room for laboratories and museums, once
the necessity of vivifying philosophy by contact with the sciences is admitted
(see section VIII). As for the practical seminary, 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 his individual 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 the scientific vocation of those
whose efforts have been crowned with a first success.
C. The Order of Philosophical
Teaching. —
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 with logic. Now logic, the
science of science, is difficult to understand and unattractive in the earliest
stages of teaching. It is better to begin with the sciences which take the real
for their object: psychology, cosmology, metaphysics, and theodicy. Scientific
logic will be better understood later on; moral philosophy presupposes
psychology; 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 the
scientific teaching preliminary to philosophy? Only a course in the sciences
specially appropriate to philosophy can meet the manifold exigencies of the
problem. The general scientific courses of our modern universities 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 a knowledge of the most
general causes and laws" (Mercier, "Rapport sur les études supérieures
de philosophie", Louvain, 1891, p. 25). M. Boutroux, a professor at the
Sorbonne, solves the problem of philosophical teaching at the university 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 the
sciences, whether theoretic, mathematico-physical, or
philologico-historical" ("Revue internationale de
l'enseignement", Paris, 1901, p. 51O). The programme of courses of the
Institute of Philosophy of Louvain is drawn up in conformity with this spirit.
XII. Bibliography.
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,
formerly Fichte-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,
Tubingen, 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 in Rev. 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).
—MAURICE DE WULF
