The approach to philosophy
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| The approach to philosophy |
The purpose of the book will in part account for those shortcomings that immediately reveal themselves to the eye of the scholar. In Part I various great human interests have been selected as points of departure. I have sought to introduce the general standpoint and problem of philosophy through its implication in practical life, poetry, religion, and science.
But in so doing it has been necessary for me to deal shortly with topics of great independent importance, and so risk the disfavour of those better skilled in these several matters. This is evidently true of the chapter which deals with natural science. However, the problem which Ithere faced differed radically from those of the foregoing chapters, and the method of treatment is correspondingly different.
In the case of natural science, one has to deal with a body of knowledge which is frequently regarded as the only knowledge. To write a chapter about science from a philosophical standpoint is, in the present state of opinion, to undertake a polemic against exclusive naturalism, an attitude which is itself philosophical, and as such is well known in the history of philosophy as positivism or agnosticism. I have avoided the polemical spirit and method so far as possible, but have, nevertheless, here taken sides against a definite philosophical position.
This chapter, together with the Conclusion, is, therefore, an exception to the purely introductory and expository representation which I have, on the whole, sought to give. The relatively great space accorded to the discussion of religion is, in my own belief, fair to the general interest in this topic, and to the intrinsic significance of its relation to philosophy.]
Contents:
Approach to the problem of philosophy -- The practical man and the philosopher -- Poetry and philosophy -- The religious experience -- The philosophical implications of religion -- Natural science and philosophy -- The special problems of philosophy -- Metaphysics and epistemology -- The normative sciences and the problems of religion -- Systems of philosophy -- Naturalism -- Subjectivism -- Absolute realism -- Absolute
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