| Summary: | "The etymological force of the word philosophy is the love of wisdom. Seizing this, we grasp a descriptive phrase, not a definition; we take possession of the practical substance but miss the dialectic essence. Wisdom is knowledge enriching experience with blessed fruits. Wisdom is assimilative insight in fruition at its goal. But let us leave the surface of description, and enter the depth of definition. What is philosophy? It is that form of thinking wherein all the parts imply one another, and every part implies the whole. It is that kind of knowledge which has its presuppositions in itself, and is, therefore, independent of all other knowledge, while all other knowledge is dependent on it. It is the self-seizure of the idea in reflective consciousness. It is the science of self-activity. It is the pure search after the First Principle, the finding of it, and the deduction thence of all else. It takes for its province those elements and methods which are common to all the special sciences, and groups them in a sovereign unification. Hence, with entire justice, it has generally been designated the science of sciences, queen of all the rest. Strenuous efforts have recently been made in several elaborate lectures to show that ethical science does not depend either on religion or philosophy, but is every way competent to itself. This is a shallow confusion of thought, and an unwarrantable use of language. The case may be conclusively stated in a nutshell thus: Philosophy is the science of ultimate grounds. Morality is the science of right and wrong in human conduct"--Introduction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
|
|---|
