The Positive Outcome of Philosophy Part 20

In this way I pa.s.sed from politics to philosophy, and from philosophy to the theory of positive knowledge which I presented to the public in 1869 in my little work "The Nature of Human Brain Work." Further studies on the general powers of understanding have added to my special knowledge of this subject, so that I am now enabled to fill the old wine into a new bottle instead of publishing a new edition of my old work.

The science which I present in the following pages is very limited in its circ.u.mference, but all the better founded and important in its consequences. This, I trust, will be accepted as a sufficient excuse for the recurring repet.i.tion of the same statements in a different form. My remaining confined to a single point requires no apology. What is left undone by one, is bequeathed as a problem to others.

There might be some dispute over the question, how much of this positive achievement of philosophy is due to the author and to his predecessors.

But that is an interminable task of small concern. No matter who hoisted the calf out of the well, so long as it is out. Anyway, this whole work treats of the concatenation and interdependence of things, and this also throws a bright light on the question of mine and thine.

J. DIETZGEN.

CHICAGO, March 30, 1887.

THE POSITIVE OUTCOME OF PHILOSOPHY

I

POSITIVE KNOWLEDGE AS A SPECIAL OBJECT

That which we call science nowadays was known to our ancestors by a name which then sounded very respectable and distinguished, but which has in the meantime acquired a somewhat ludicrous taste, the name of wisdom.

This gradual transition of wisdom into science is a positive achievement of philosophy which well deserves our attention.

The term "ancestors" is very indefinite. It comprises people who lived more than three thousand years ago as well as those who died less than a hundred years ago. And a wise man was still respected a hundred years ago, while to-day that t.i.tle always implies a little ridicule and disrespect.

The wisdom of our ancestors is so old that it has not even a date. It reaches back, the same as the origin of language, to the period when man developed from the animal world. But if we call a wise man, in the language of our day, a philosopher, then it is at once plain that wisdom is descended from the ancient Greeks. This wonderful nation produced the first philosophers.

Whether this term indicates a man who loves wisdom or one who loves science, is of little moment to-day, and there was no such distinction in ancient times. We remember that it was entirely undecided among the Greeks whether a mathematician, an astronomer, a physician, an orator, or a student of the art of living deserved the t.i.tle of a philosopher.

These professions were not clearly distinguished. They were wrapped up one in another like the embryo in a mother's womb. While humanity had still little knowledge, a man might well be wise. But to-day it is necessary to specialize, to devote one's self to a special science, because the field of exploration has grown so extended. The philosopher of to-day is no longer a wise man, but a specialist.

The stars are the objects of astronomy, the animals of zoology, the plants of botany. Who and what are now the objects of philosophy? This may be explained in one word to an expert. But if we try to give information to the general public, the matter becomes difficult.

What do I know about the shoe industry, if I know that it produces shoes? I know something general about it, but I have no knowledge of its details. It is impossible to give sufficient information on the details of shoemaking to any one in a few words, not even to an educated person.

Neither is it possible to explain the object of philosophy in such a way. The object may be stated, but not explained, for it cannot be made plain and brought home to the understanding in a few words.

That is the word, understanding. The understanding is the object of philosophy.

We must at once call the reader's attention to the ambiguity of this term. Understanding, knowledge, is the object of all science. That is nothing special. Every study seeks to enlighten the brain. But philosophy wishes to be a science and does not desire to relapse into antiquity by becoming universal wisdom. To say that understanding is the object of philosophy is to give merely the same reply which Thales, Pythagoras, or Plato would have given. Has proud philosophy gained nothing since? What is its positive achievement? That is the question.

Philosophy to-day still has understanding for its object. But it is no longer indefinite understanding which tries to embrace everything, but rather the understanding of the method by which knowledge may be gained.

Philosophy now wishes to learn _how it comes to pa.s.s_ that other objects may be illumined by the mind. To speak plainly, it is no longer the understanding which seeks to know everything as it did at the time of Socrates that is now the special study of philosophy, but rather the mind itself, its method and the perceptive powers of thought and understanding.

If this were all, if the world's wise men had done nothing but to at last find the object of philosophy, it would be a very scanty achievement. No, the harvest is much richer. The present day theory of human understanding is a real science, which well deserves to be popularized. Our ancestors sought understanding after the manner of Socrates and Plato in the entrails of the human brain, while at the same time despising the experience outside of it. They hoped to find truth by cudgeling their brain. "Honor to Socrates, honor to Plato; but still more honor to Truth!"

Aristotle showed a little more interest in the outer world. With the downfall of the old social stage the old philosophy naturally succ.u.mbed also. It did not revive until a few hundred years ago, at the beginning of modern times.

A short while ago, Shakespeare attracted much attention, when some one claimed to have discovered that it was not he who wrote those famous dramas and tragedies, but his contemporary Bacon of Verulam, Lord Chancellor of England. Whether Shakespeare keeps his laurels or not, Bacon's name is still great enough, for it is generally accepted as the mile stone of modern philosophy.

One might say that philosophy was asleep from the time of Aristotle to that of Bacon. At least it produced no remarkable results during that period, and it cannot be denied that philosophy from ancient Greek days to the present times moved in a mystic fog which detracted much from its study in the eyes of educated and honest men. But the philosophers themselves are less to blame for this than the concealment of the object. Only after the entire social development has furthered the human understanding to the point where it can benefit from the light spread by the various branches of science, does philosophy become conscious of its special object and able to separate its positive achievements from the rubbish of the past.

If we compare the old Grecian wisdom with modern science, the outcome of philosophy looks insignificant by the side of the achievements of science. Nevertheless, great as the value of the aggregate product of science may be, it is composed of individual values, and every one of its parts is worthy of consideration. The method, the way, the form, in which the mind arrives at its practical creations is one of these parts.

The mind, on its march from ignorance to its present wealth has not only gathered a treasury of knowledge, but also improved its methods, so that the further constructive work of science proceeds faster now. Who will fail to recognize that material production has acc.u.mulated a treasure in the methods by which it produces to-day, which is by no means of less value than the acc.u.mulated national wealth itself? The positive outcome of philosophy bears the same relation to the wealth of science.

II

THE POWER OF COGNITION IS KIN TO THE UNIVERSE

The way of Truth, or the true way, is not musing, but the conscious connection of our thoughts with the actual life--that is the quintessence of the teachings of philosophy produced by evolution. But this is not everything. If I know that a tanner makes leather, I do not by any means know everything he does, because there still remains the manner and method of his manipulations. In the same way, the doctrine of the interrelation of mind and matter, which is the product of the entire social development, requires a better and more specific substantiation, so that its true quality as a positive achievement of philosophy, or of the theory of knowledge may be better understood. If the matter is represented in this bare manner--it does, indeed, resemble the egg of Columbus--one does not see why so much should be made of it. But if we enter into the details that have produced the result, we do not only learn to better respect the prominent philosophers, but their works also reveal a rich mine of special and comprehensive knowledge.

All sciences are closely related, for advances in one branch are preparations for advances in others. Astronomy is unthinkable without mathematics and optics. Every science has begun unscientifically, and in the course of the acc.u.mulation of individual knowledge a more or less exact systematic organization of this knowledge has resulted. No science has as yet arrived at completeness and perfectness. We have as yet more the results of experimental effort than accomplished perfection.

Philosophy is no better off in this respect. We rather believe we are doing something to overcome a deeply rooted prejudice when we state that philosophy is no worse off than other sciences, so long as we succeed in ascertaining that it has accomplished positive results and in pointing them out.

It is a positive accomplishment of philosophy that mankind to-day has a clear and unequivocal conception of the necessity of the division of labor as a means of being successful. Our present day philosophers no longer make excursions into dreamland in the quest of the True, the Beautiful, and the Good, as did the ancients. The True, the Beautiful, and the Good, are nevertheless the objects of all modern science, only, thanks to evolution, these objects are now sought by special means. And the clear consciousness of this condition of things is a philosophical consciousness.

It is a part of the theory of understanding to know that in order to accomplish something one must limit oneself to a specialty. That is a fundamental demand for the use of common sense, which the primitive musing brain did not realize. Thinking must be done with wide open and active eyes, with alert senses, not with closed eyes or fixed gaze. This is a part of logic. We do not deny that men have always done their thinking by means of the senses. We only claim that they did not do so from principle, otherwise the old complaint about the unreliability of the senses as a means of knowledge would not have lived so long. Neither would the inner man have been so excessively overestimated, nor abstract thought so much celebrated, just as if it alone were the child of n.o.bler birth. I do not wish to detract from the merits of the power of abstraction, but I simply claim that the clay of which Adam was made was no less divine than the spiritual breath that gave him his life. Nor do I mean that it is due to philosophy alone that mankind learned not to strain "understanding" in abstract vaporings, but instead to introduce the division of labor and to take up the various specialties with open senses. The technique of understanding is the product of the entire movement of civilization, and as such a positive accomplishment of philosophy. The total process of evolution has placed the philosophers on their feet.

There is no doubt that up to the present time, philosophy partook more of the character of a desire and love of science than of world wisdom.

This wisdom does not amount to much, even to-day. This is plainly demonstrated by the dissensions of the educated and uneducated on all questions pertaining to wisdom of life. Socrates in the market of Athens, and Plato in his dialogues, have probably said better things about the questions: "What is virtue? What is justice? What is moral and reasonable?" than the professors of philosophy would know how to say to-day. Kant has well said that the unanimity of the experts is the test by which one may decide what is a scientific fact and what is mere dispute. From this it is easy to judge that wisdom of life is still in a bad way and will have to wait for its scientific transformation.

We declared understanding itself to be the special object of philosophy and shall now attempt to outline the results so far obtained by it.

One of the first requirements for the education of the object of philosophy is to recall its various names. The understanding, or the power of knowledge, is also called intelligence, intellect, mind, spirit, reason, power of cognition, of conception, of distinction, of imagination, of judgment, and of drawing conclusions. The attempt has frequently been made to a.n.a.lyze understanding or to dissect it into its various parts and to specialize them by the help of those names.

Especially logic knows how to give particular explanations of what is imagination, a conception, a judgment, and a conclusion. It has even divided these sections into subsections, so that a trained logician might reproach me with being ignorant for applying various names to intelligence, because only the common people confound those names and use them as synonyms, while science has long used them in their proper order for designating special parts of intelligence.

To such a reproach, I answer that Aristotle and the subsequent formal logicians have made some pretty pointed observations and excellent arrangements in this field. But these proved to be premature or inadequate, because the observations on which the ancient intellectual explorers relied were too scanty. This scantiness of the observations made in regard to intelligence, and by intelligence, has kept the human race in the mazes of intellectual bondage and by this mysticism has even prevented the most advanced minds from penetrating deeper into this obscure question. The history of philosophy is not the history of a useless struggle, but yet a history of a hard struggle with the question: What is, what does, of what parts consists, and of what nature is understanding, intelligence, reason, intellect, etc.? So long as this question is unsettled, the questioner is ent.i.tled to dispense with any and all sections and subsections of the intellectual object and to regard the various names as synonymous.

The main accomplishment in the solution of this question is the ever clearer and preciser knowledge of our days that the nature of the human intellect is of the same kind, genus or quality as the whole of nature.

In order that the theory of understanding may be able to elucidate this point, it must divest itself, more or less, of the character of a speciality and occupy itself with all of nature, a.s.sume the character of cosmogony.

It is princ.i.p.ally an achievement of philosophy that we now know definitely and down to the minutest detail that the human mind is a definite and limited part of the unlimited universe.

Just as a piece of oak wood has the twofold quality of partaking not alone, with its oaken nature, of the general nature of wood, but also of the unlimited generality of all nature, so is the intellect a limited specialty, which has the quality of being universal as a part of the universe and of being conscious of its own and of all universality. The boundless universal cosmic nature is embodied in the intellect, in the animal as well as in man, the same as it is embodied in the oak wood, in all other wood, in all matter and force. The worldly monistic nature which is mortal and immortal, limited and unlimited, special and general, all in one, is found in everything, and everything is found in nature--understanding or the power of knowledge is no exception.

It is this twofold nature of the universe, this being at the same time limited and unlimited, this reflection of its eternal essence and eternal truth in changing phenomena, which has rendered its understanding very difficult for the human mind. This intricate quality has been represented by religion in the fantastic picture of two worlds, separating the temporal from the eternal, the limited from the unlimited, too unreasonably far. But nowadays the indestructibility of matter and the eternity of material forces is a matter of fact accepted by natural science.

The positive outcome of philosophy, then, is the knowledge of the monistic way in which the seeming duality of the universe is active in the human understanding.

III