R020200: A Philosophical
Agenda
[Durant1953]
-- Dennis E. Hamilton
2002 February 14
Last updated
2002-02-14-15:39 -0800 (pdt)
- p.4, concerned about usurpation of philosophy by other disciplines.
- At the same time looks at epistemology and considers that "the
relation between subject and object, of the mode in which the knower knows
the known, of the objective and the subjective elements in knowledge, of
the objectivity of space and time, and the degree in which the qualities
which we ascribe to objects belong to objects or to the minds that
perceive them--these, in their details, are puzzles for the science of
psychology ... . It is a villainous accident that one actor
[epistemology] in the great drama of ideas should have usurped nearly all
the roles, and mouthed nearly all the lines, in the play of modern
philosophical thought."
- p.5 concerning science and experience
- "Technically, as we defined it long ago, philosophy is 'a study of
experience as a whole, or of a portion of experience in relation to the
whole.'
" ... The relation of science to philosophy needs no further
clarification: the sciences are the windows through which philosophy sees
the world, they are the sense of which it is the soul; without it their
knowledge is as chaotically helpless as sensations that come to a
disordered mind, making an idiot's lore."
- p.8 accuracy and trustworthiness
- "Of necessity philosophy is more hypothetical than science.
Science itself must use hypothesis, but only as its starting-point; it
must, if it be science, issue in verifiable knowledge, objectively
independent of individual utility or whim."
- p.10 on stability in science and changing views
- "Perhaps if we desire stability of mind and soul we shall have to
seek it less in science than in philosophy. The differences among
philosophers are due rather to the changing terminology of their times
than to the hostility of their ideas; indeed, in great measure they are
due to the inconstancy of science itself, with its passionate devotion to
some hypothesis for a while, and then its satiety, and apathy, and flight
to the novel face of some younger theory."
- p.11 Logic as the first realm of philosophy's kingdom, and the vestibule
of her home.
- "How show we know Truth when we behold her, if we have not
learned to picture at least her semblance, and have not pondered the tests
and trials by which we shall assure ourselves of her 'real presence.'?
- p.11 Home of the great dragon, epistemology
- "... we must face this test too, and answer in some forgivable way
the riddle of knowledge, the problem of the reality and honesty of the
world that we perceive."
- p.11 The lordly realm, metaphysics
- "Here Nature hides her secret essence, and puzzles us with a
hundred clues. ... Here we may ponder the problems of matter and life, of
brain and mind, of materialism and spiritualism, of mechanism and vitalism,
of determinism and freedom. What is man? -- a thing of coils and
springs and tangled wheels, moved from without by the blind forces of
earth and sky? -- or, in his small and ridiculous way a creative
god?"
- p.12 Additional realms:
- History, Esthetics, Ethics, Religion
created 2002-02-14-15:39 -0800 (pst) by orcmid
$$Author: Orcmid $
$$Date: 03-05-25 10:50 $
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