An Introduction to Philosophy

by George Stuart Fullerton

Under such circumstances we are apt to forget that there are many such roads, and that these have been traveled in ages past by troops very much like our own, who also cherished the hope that they were upon the one and only highway. In other words, we are apt to forget the lesson of the history of philosophy. This is a serious mistake.

And what intensifies our danger, if we belong to a school which happens to be dominant and to have active representatives, is that we get very little real criticism. The books that we write are usually criticised by those who view our positions sympathetically, and who are more inclined to praise than to blame. He who looks back upon the past is struck with the fact that books which have been lauded to the skies in one age have often been subjected to searching criticism and to a good deal of condemnation in the next. Something very like this is to be expected of books written in our own time. It is, however, a pity that we should have to wait so long for impartial criticism.

This leads me to say a word of the reviews which fill our philosophical journals, and which we must read, for it is impossible to read all the books that come out, and yet we wish to know something about them.

To the novice it is something of a surprise to find that books by men whom he knows to be eminent for their ingenuity and their learning are condemned in very offhand fashion by quite young men, who as yet have attained to little learning and to no eminence at all. One sometimes is tempted to wonder that men admittedly remarkable should have fathered such poor productions as we are given to understand them to be, and should have offered them to a public that has a right to be indignant.

Now, there can be no doubt that, in philosophy, a cat has the right to look at a king, and has also a right to point out his misdoings, if such there be. But it seems just to indicate that, in this matter, certain cautions should be observed.

If a great man has been guilty of an error in reasoning, there is no reason why it should not be pointed out by any one who is capable of detecting it. The authority of the critic is a matter of no moment where the evidence is given. In such a case, we take a suggestion and we do the criticising for ourselves. But where the evidence is not given, where the justice of the criticism is not proved, the case is different. Here we must take into consideration the authority of the critic, and, if we follow him at all, we must follow him blindly. Is it safe to do this?

It is never safe in philosophy, or, at any rate, it is safe so seldom that the exceptions are not worth taking into account. Men write from the standpoint of some school of opinion; and, until we know their prepossessions, their statements that this is good, that is bad, the third thing is profound, are of no significance whatever. We should simply set them aside, and try to find out from our reviewer what is contained in the book under criticism.

One of the evils arising out of the bias I am discussing is, that books and authors are praised or condemned indiscriminately because of their point of view, and little discrimination is made between good books and poor books. There is all the difference in the world between a work which can be condemned only on the ground that it is realistic or idealistic in its standpoint, and those feeble productions which are to be condemned from every point of view. If we consistently carry out the principle that we may condemn all those who are not of our party, we must give short shrift to a majority of the great men of the past.

So I say, beware of authority in philosophy, and, above all, beware of that most insidious form of authority, the spirit of the "school." It cannot but narrow our sympathies and restrict our outlook.

91. REMEMBER THAT ORDINARY RULES OF EVIDENCE APPLY.—What I am going to say in this section is closely related to what has been said just above. To the disinterested observer it may seem rather amusing that one should think it worth while to try to show that we have not the right to use a special set of weights and measures when we are dealing with things philosophical. There was a time when men held that a given doctrine could be philosophically false, and, at the same time, theologically true; but surely the day of such twists and turnings is past!