An Introduction to Philosophy

by George Stuart Fullerton

Nevertheless, the special sciences stand, as we have already seen in the case of several of them, very near to his own. If he broadens his view, and deliberately determines to take a survey of the field of human knowledge as illuminated by the analyses that he has made, he becomes something more than a metaphysician; he becomes a philosopher.

This does not in the least mean that he becomes a storehouse of miscellaneous information, and an authority on all the sciences. Sometimes the philosophers have attempted to describe the world of matter and of mind as though they possessed some mysterious power of knowing things that absolved them from the duty of traveling the weary road of observation and experiment that has ended in the sciences as we have them. When they have done this, they have mistaken the significance of their calling. A philosopher has no more right than another man to create information out of nothing.

But it is possible, even for one who is not acquainted with the whole body of facts presented in a science, to take careful note of the assumptions upon which that science rests, to analyze the concepts of which it makes use, to mark the methods which it employs, and to gain a fair idea of its scope and of its relation to other sciences. Such a reflection upon our scientific knowledge is philosophical reflection, and it may result in a classification of the sciences, and in a general view of human knowledge as a whole. Such a view may be illuminating in the extreme; it can only be harmful when its significance is misunderstood.

But, it may be argued, why may not the man of science do all this for himself? Why should he leave it to the philosopher, who is presumably less intimately acquainted with the sciences than he is?

To this I answer: The work should, of course, be done by the man who will do it best. All our subdivision of labor should be dictated by convenience. But I add, that experience has shown that the workers in the special sciences have not as a rule been very successful when they have tried to philosophize.

Science is an imperious mistress; she demands one's utmost efforts; and when a man turns to philosophical reflection merely "by the way," and in the scraps of time at his disposal after the day's work is done, his philosophical work is apt to be rather superficial. Moreover, it does not follow that, because a man is a good mathematician or chemist or physicist, he is gifted with the power of reflective analysis. Then, too, such men are apt to be imperfectly acquainted with what has been done in the past; and those who are familiar with the history of philosophy often have occasion to remark that what is laid before them, in ignorance of the fact that it is neither new nor original, is a doctrine which has already made its appearance in many forms and has been discussed at prodigious length in the centuries gone by.

In certain sciences it seems possible to ignore the past, to a great extent, at least. What is worth keeping has been kept, and there is a solid foundation on which to build for the future. But with reflective thought it is not so. There is no accepted body of doctrine which we have the right to regard as unassailable. We should take it as a safe maxim that the reflections of men long dead may be profounder and more worthy of our study than those urged upon our attention by the men of our day.

And this leads me to make a remark upon the titles given to works on metaphysics. It seems somewhat misleading to label them: "Outlines of Metaphysics" or "Elements of Metaphysics." Such titles suggest that we are dealing with a body of doctrine which has met with general acceptance, and may be compared with that found in handbooks on the special sciences. But we should realize that, when we are concerned with the profounder investigations into the nature of our experience, we tread upon uncertain ground and many differences of opinion obtain. We should, if possible, avoid a false semblance of authority.

75. EPISTEMOLOGY.—We hear a great deal at the present day of Epistemology, or the Theory of Knowledge. I have not classed it as a distinct philosophical science, for reasons which will appear below.

We have seen in Chapter XVI that it is possible to treat of logic in a simple way without growing very metaphysical; but we have also seen that when we go deeply into questions touching the nature of evidence and what is meant by truth and falsity, we are carried back to philosophical reflection at once.