The ground and goal of human life

Of all the problems which confront the philosophic mind, none is superior to or more im- portant than a form of inquiry that seeks to relate the individual to the world. The special form which this problem assumes expresses itself in terms of " subjectivity " and " objectivity," although these conventional methods of speech may fail to convey to the reflective mind the significance of the problem and the severity of the situation in connection with which that problem must be discussed.

The subjective includes the human self with its perpetual tendency to say, " I think " and " I will," while the objective has direct reference to the organized realms of the physical and political, the scientific and the social.

To the individualistic " I think," the physical order may not respond; to the subjective " I will," the social order may pay no heed. As a result, the thinker may feel forced to resort to a sharp subjectivism which declares, " le monde n'existe pas pour moi," or he may relapse into sullen objectivism which feels no sense of responsibility for that which is unique in human life.

The form of philosophy which seeks to meet this problem of human life in the world, may, for want of a more adequate term, be called Philosophy of Life; that which is peculiar to such a method of speculation is its attempted combination of the metaphysical and the moral.

It might seem as though one could examine the forms of the world without taking into account the leading species which that world has produced, just as it might appear plausible when one asserts that he may pursue his ethics without asking questions concerning the nature of the world in which the ethical subject is to exhibit its ideals.

Indeed, traditional metaphysics here and traditional ethics there have agreed to divide the tw^in fields be- tween; hence moralist and metaphysician separated much after the manner of Lot and Abraham. Now philosophy of life proceeds upon the assumption that such separation is injurious.

Can a man be himself? Has he a right to attempt a passage outward from the subjective " I think " to an objective " I am "? This is the question which philosophy of life feels constrained to propose, even when it realizes that the self-satisfied thought of the day is inclined to assume that the self is all that it may hope to be.

Nothing in the realm of contemporary culture is more confusing than the fact that those who have the least interest in the human self, the scientific and social thinkers, have persisted in assuming that that self exists, while those who have the most interest in the self, the aesthetical, ethical, and religious individualists, are never guilty of taking the self for granted.

The objective thinker should say, " the self does not exist," and should go his Scientifico-social way rejoicing; the subjective thinker should say, " the self does exist " and no longer seek to affirm the ego. The actual situation is the very reverse of this which would seem to be the expected one. Individualism feels called upon to regard the self, not as a physical fact, but as that which can come into being only after due self-affirmation.

If there were no world of things, individualism might rejoice in sheer selfhood; but the world of things does exist, so that the human self, instead of silhouetting itself against the blue of spiritual life, must strive to shine through the opaqueness of an alien world-order. Man is eyer3rthing else but himself, while his most natural- tendency is to elaborate forms of thought whichever tend to eliminate himself from the world.

Can man do his work; or, has man a work which he may call his own? If it is hard to say, "I am," it is no less difficult to assert, " I do " ; for the inner life is usually marked by a decided nescio and non facto. Were there no social order, and did the ego feel free to act upon his own initiative, self-activity and the joy of self-expression would take their place in the timer consciousness of the self-propelled individual; but, with the actual conditions of social life hemming the individual about, pervading his nature within, it is evident that self-expression must be impelled from within outward in opposition to the alien forces of the larger human order. Man does everything but his own work; his most natural motive is to will himself out of the world of work.

To the metaphysical doubt concerning the existence of the self in the natural order, there is thus added a moral compunction as to the right one has to express himself in the social world; apparently, it was vain for the individual to think of self-existence, while it was vicious for him to pretend to do that which he calls "his own work." As metaphysics has surrendered its forms to impersonal nature, morality has loaned its forces to the selfless social order; hence, there is no true " I am," no just " I do."

The ground and goal of human life - PDF book by Charles Gray Shaw