A Critical History of Greek Philosophy, W. T. Stace [best books to read for students txt] 📗

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It is natural that, at the commencement of any study, one should be expected to say what the subject-matter of that study is. Botany is the knowledge of plants, astronomy of the heavenly bodies, geology of the rocks of the earth's crust. What, then, is the special sphere of philosophy? What is philosophy about? Now it is not as easy to give a concise definition of philosophy, as it is of the other sciences. In the first place, the content of philosophy has differed considerably in different periods of history. In general the tendency has been to narrow down the scope of the subject as knowledge advanced, to exclude from philosophy what was formerly included in it. Thus in the time of Plato, physics and astronomy were included as parts of philosophy, whereas now they constitute separate sciences. This, however, is not an insurmountable difficulty. What chiefly militates against the effort to frame a definition is that the precise content of philosophy is differently viewed by different schools of thought. Thus a definition of {2} philosophy which a follower of Herbert Spencer might frame would be unacceptable to an Hegelian, and the Hegelian definition would be rejected by the Spencerian. If we were to include in our definition some such phrase as "the knowledge of the Absolute," while this might suit some philosophers, others would deny that there is any Absolute at all. Another school would say that there may be an Absolute, but that it is unknowable, so that philosophy cannot be the knowledge of it. Yet another school would tell us that, whether there is or is not an Absolute, whether it is or is not knowable, the knowledge of it is in any case useless, and ought not to be sought. Hence no definition of philosophy can be appreciated without some knowledge of the special tenets of the various schools. In a word, the proper place to give a definition is not at the beginning of the study of philosophy, but at the end of it. Then, with all views before us, we might be able to decide the question.

I shall make no attempt, therefore, to place before you a precise definition. But perhaps the same purpose will be served, if I pick out some of the leading traits of philosophy, which serve to distinguish it from other branches of knowledge, and illustrate them by enumerating--but without any attempt at completeness--some of the chief problems which philosophers have usually attempted to solve. And firstly, philosophy is distinguished from other branches of knowledge by the fact that, whereas these each take some particular portion of the universe for their study, philosophy does not specialize in this way, but deals with the universe as a whole. The universe is one, and ideal knowledge of it would be one; but the principles of specialization and division of {3} labour apply here as elsewhere, and so astronomy takes for its subject that portion of the universe which we call the heavenly bodies, botany specializes in plant life, psychology in the facts of the mind, and so on. But philosophy does not deal with this or that particular sphere of being, but with being as such. It seeks to see the universe as a single co-ordinated system of things. It might be described as the science of things in general. The world in its most universal aspects is its subject. All sciences tend to generalize, to reduce multitudes of particular facts to single general laws. Philosophy carries this process to its highest limit. It generalizes to the utmost. It seeks to view the entire universe in the light of the fewest possible general principles, in the light, if possible, of a single ultimate principle.

It is a consequence of this that the special sciences take their subject matter, and much of their contents, for granted, whereas philosophy seeks to trace everything back to its ultimate grounds. It may be thought that this description of the sciences is incorrect. Is not the essential maxim of modern science to assume nothing, to take nothing for granted, to assert nothing without demonstration, to prove all? This is no doubt true within certain limits, but beyond those limits it does not hold good. All the sciences take quite for granted certain principles and facts which are, for them, ultimate. To investigate these is the portion of the philosopher, and philosophy thus takes up the thread of knowledge where the sciences drop it. It begins where they end. It investigates what they take as a matter of course.

Let us consider some examples of this. The science of geometry deals with the laws of space. But it takes {4} space just as it finds it in common experience. It takes space for granted. No geometrician asks what space is. This, then, will be a problem for philosophy. Moreover, geometry is founded upon certain fundamental propositions which, it asserts, being self-evident, require no investigation. These are called "axioms." That two straight lines cannot enclose a space, and that equals being added to equals the results are equal, are common examples. Into the ground of these axioms the geometrician does not enquire. That is the business of philosophy. Not that philosophers affect to doubt the truth of these axioms. But surely it is a very strange thing, and a fact quite worthy of study, that there are some statements of which we feel that we must give the most laborious proofs, and others in the case of which we feel no such necessity. How is it that some propositions can be self-evident and others must be proved? What is the ground of this distinction? And when one comes to think of it, it is a very extraordinary property of mind that it should be able to make the most universal and unconditional statements about things, without a jot of evidence or proof. When we say that two straight lines cannot enclose a space, we do not mean merely that this has been found true in regard to all the particular pairs of straight lines with which we have tried the experiment. We mean that it never can be and never has been otherwise. We mean that a million million years ago two straight lines did not enclose a space, and that it will be the same a million million years hence, and that it is just as true on those stars, if there are any, which are invisible even to the greatest telescopes. But we have no experience of what will {5} happen a million million years hence, or of what can take place among those remote stars. And yet we assert, with absolute confidence, that our axiom is and must be equally true everywhere and at all times. Moreover, we do not found this on probabilities gathered from experience. Nobody would make experiments or use telescopes to prove such axioms. How is it that they are thus self-evident, that the mind can make these definite and far-reaching assertions without any evidence at all? Geometricians do not consider these questions. They take the facts for granted. To solve these problems is for philosophy.

Again, the physical sciences take the existence of matter for granted. But philosophy asks what matter is. At first sight it might appear that this question is one for the physicist and not the philosopher. For the problem of "the constitution of matter" is a well-known physical problem. But a little consideration will show that this is quite a different question from the one the philosopher propounds. For even if it be shown that all matter is ether, or electricity, or vortex-atoms, or other such, this does not help us in our special problem. For these theories, even if proved, only teach us that the different kinds of matter are forms of some one physical existence. But what we want to know is what physical existence itself is. To prove that one kind of matter is really another kind of matter does not tell us what is the essential nature of matter. That, therefore, is a problem, not of science, but of philosophy.

In the same way, all the