Philosophy

Philosophy

not a special science. A similar claim on the
part of logic to tb^ rank of a philosophical
science will be more readily admitted. We
must now consider what is meant by phil-
osophy in the narrower sense of metaphysics.
With Aristotle metaphysics is the highest
of the theoretical sciences, and is defined as
dealing not with any special aspect of what
exists taken in abstraction from other as-
pects, but with 'being as such' or with the
ultimate nature and principles of the real.
Philosophers may be said in one sense to
have always had before them one single
aim, the same for all—viz., the attainment
of the most fundamental kind of knowledge
within the reach of human reason.

The primary and outstanding condition
which affects philosophic thought at the
present time is the enormous development
of the special sciences, each with its own
definite sphere and task, and philosophy,
which seems to be left with no definite task
or sphere at all. In Greek thought, although
the distinction between philosophy or meta-
physics and the special sciences had attained
a definite expression, science and philosophy
were constantly united in the same person.
The philosopher Plato was an expert mathe-
matician. His great successor, Aristotle, may
be said not only to have summed up in
himself the whole scientific knowledge of
his time, but also to have done far more
than any other single thinker to extend the
bounds and organize the work of scientific
inquiry. Even in modern philosophy the
conjunction of scientist and philosopher had
long its eminent examples. Descartes was
perhaps even greater as a mathematician
and natural philosopher than as a specula-
tive thinker. Leibniz, who shares with New-
ton, the origination of the differential cal-
culus, combined with his speculative power
wide knowledge and learning. Kant, before
he produced his great philosophical works,
wrote on physical science, anticipating in his
speculations on the Theory of the Heavens
the later theory of Laplace. Hegel was
hardly a specialist in science like his pre-
decessors, yet the materials of his system
were derived from a very wide range of
positive knowledge. With Hegel there be-
gins to make itself felt more and more
strongly a profound change in the rela-
tions between philosophy and science. By
the very character and comprehensiveness
of his system he was driven to treat of the
subject-matter of physical science as well,

and for this task he was by no means so
well equipped. Consequently his philosophy
of nature laid itself open to scientific criti-
cism—criticism all the more damaging on
account of the lofty pretensions of his abso-
lute philosophy. Hegel's is the last great
system by which such pretensions have been
made on behalf of philosophy. When we
turn to the writings of Lotze we find a
very- different tone. 'Though I venture,"
says Lotze,-in the preface to his Logic, 'to
describe the present work as the first part
of a system of philosophy, I hope that this
designation will not be supposed to indicate
the same pretensions which it was wont to
herald in times gone by. It is obvious that
I can propose to myself nothing more than
to set forth the entirety of my personal
convictions in a systematic form.' The
change of tone, quite apart from mere re-
action, was inevitable. The enormous ex-
tension and continually-increasing specializa-
tion of science have made it quite impossible
for any one man to think of comprehending,
in Hegelian fashion, within the framework
of a formally complete and rounded sys-
tem, the masses of material that are now
available. Philosophers like Lotze, or
Wundt, who do possess an extensive working
knowledge of this sort, are few. But the
ordinary philosophical writer and teacher
cannot expect, on the ground of his own ac-
quaintance with scientific methods and re-
sults, any great amount of deference from
men of science.

In these circumstances many are disposed
to deny that a metaphysics in the older
sense of a theory of the ultimate nature
and principles of the real can be attempted
at all, and to hold that all that philosophy
can aim at is a theory of knowledge, So
great, no doubt, does the difficulty of meta-
physical construction appear when we think
of the vast material supplied by the special
sciences, that we cannot wonder that many
would fain see metaphysics driven out once
for all, and the special sciences put in sole
possession of the field. But the philosophi-
cal impulse is too deeply rooted in the
human mind not to reveal itself sooner or
later in other directions. The specialist him-
self is only too apt to turn philosopher; and
ignorance of previous work in the subject
is no more likely to be an advantage in phil-
osophy than in sciences There is another
group who would supplant metaphysics, nol
by the special sciences, but by the doctrine?