Moritz Schlick (1882-1936) was a leading Logical Positivist
philosopher and one of the founders of the Vienna Circle, a group of
philosophers and scientists who put forward a project of reshaping philosophy according
to the positivist ideal. The group, which included the philosophers Rudolf Carnap,
Otto Neurath and Herbert Feigl, the mathematicians Kurt G6del and Hans Hanh, and
the physicist Philipp Frank, met in Vienna from 1922 to 1938. Schlick was a
prolific writer and enthusiastic lecturer. His lecture reprinted here was given
in Stockton, California, in 1931 and first published in College of the Pacific
Publications in Philosophy I, Stockton, CA, 1932, pp. 45-62.
The study of the history of philosophy is perhaps
the most fascinating pursuit for anyone who is eager to understand the civilization
and culture of the human race, for all of the different elements of human nature
that help to build up the culture of a certain epoch or a nation mirror themselves
in on e way or another in the philosophy of that epoch or of that nation. The history of philosophy can be studied from two distinct
points of view. The first point of view is that of the historian; the second one
is that of the philosopher. They will each approach the study of the history of
philosophy with different feelings. The historian will be excited to the greatest
enthusiasm by the great works of the thinkers of all times, by the spectacle of
the immense mental energy and imagination, zeal and unselfishness which they have
devoted to their creations, and the historian will derive the highest enjoyment
from all of these achievements. The philosopher, of course, when he studies the
history of philosophy will also be delighted, and he cannot help being inspired
by the wonderful display of genius throughout all the ages. But he will not be able
to rejoice at the sight that philosophy presents to him with exactly the same feelings
as the historian. He will not be able to enjoy the thoughts of ancient and modern
times without being disturbed by feelings of an entirely different nature.
The philosopher cannot be satisfied to ask, as the historian
would ask of all the systems of thought-are they beautiful, are they brilliant,
are they historically important? and so on. The only question which will interest
him is the question, "What truth is there in these systems?" And the moment
he asks it he will be discouraged when he looks at the history of philosophy because,
as you all know, there is so much contradiction between the various systems-so much
quarreling and strife between the different opinions that have been advanced in
different periods by different philosophers belonging to different nations-that
it seems at first quite impossible to believe that there is anything like a steady
advance in the history of philosophy as there seems to be in other pursuits of
the human mind, for example, science or technique. The question which we are going to ask
tonight is "Will this chaos that has existed so far continue to exist in
the future?" Will philosophers go on contradicting each other, ridiculing
each other's opinions, or will there finally be some kind of universal agreement,
a unity of philosophical belief in the world?
All of the great philosophers believed that with their own systems
a new epoch of thinking had begun, that they, at last, had discovered the final
truth. If they had not believed this they could hardly have accomplished anything.
This was true of Descartes, for instance, when he introduced the method which
made him "the father of modern philosophy" as he is usually called; of
Spinoza when he tried to introduce the mathematical method into philosophy; or even
of Kant when he said in the preface to his greatest work that from now on
philosophy might begin to work as securely as only science had worked thus far.
They all believed that they had been able to bring the chaos to an end and
start something entirely new which would at last bring about a rise in the worth
of philosophical opinions. But the historian cannot usually share such a
belief; it may even seem ridiculous to him.
We want to ask the question, "What will be the future of
philosophy?" entirely from the point of view of the philosopher. However, to
answer the question we shall have to use the method of the historian because we
shall not be able to say what the future of philosophy will be except in so far
as our conclusions are derived from our knowledge of its past and its present. The
first effect of a historical consideration of philosophical opinions is that we
feel sure we cannot have any confidence in anyone system. If this is so- if we cannot
be Cartesians, Spinozists, Kantians, and so forth-it seems that the only alternative
is that we become skeptics, and we become inclined to believe that there can be
no true system of philosophy because if there were any such system it seems that
at least it must have been suspected and would have shown itself in some way.
However, when we examine the history of philosophy honestly, it seems as if there
were no traces of any discovery that might lead to unanimous philosophical opinion.
This skeptical inference, in fact, has been drawn by a good many historian s, and
even some philosophers have come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as
philosophical advancement, and that philosophy itself is nothing but the history
of philosophy. This view was advocated by more than one philosopher in the beginning
of the century and it has been called "historicism." That philosophy consists
only of its own history is a strange view to take, but it has been advocated and
defended with apparently striking arguments. However, we shall not find ourselves
compelled to take such a skeptical view.
We have thus far considered two possible alternatives that one may believe
in. First, that the ultimate truth is really presented in some one system of
philosophy and secondly, that there is no philosophy at all, but only a history
of thought. I do not tonight propose to choose either of these two alternatives;
but I should like to propose a third view which is neither skeptical nor based on
the belief that there can be any system of philosophy as a system of ultimate truths.
I intend to take an entirely different view of philosophy and it is, of course,
my opinion that this view of philosophy will sometime in the future be adopted by
everybody. In fact, it would seem strange to me if philosophy, that noblest of
intellectual pursuit s, the tremendous human achievement that has so often been
called the "queen of all sciences" were nothing at all but one great
deception. Therefore it seems likely that a third view can be found by careful analysis
and I believe that the view which I am going to advance here will do full justice
to all the skeptical arguments against the possibility of a philosophical system
and yet will not deprive philosophy of any of its nobility and grandeur. Of course, the mere fact that thus far the great
systems of philosophy have not been successful and have not been able to gain general
acknowledgment is no sufficient reason why there should not be some philosophical
system discovered in the future that would universally be regarded as the ultimate
solution of the great problems. This might indeed be expected to happen if philosophy
were a "science." For in science we continually find that unexpected
satisfactory solutions for great problems are found, and when it is not possible
to see clearly in any particular point on a scientific question we do not despair.
We believe that future scientists will be more fortunate and discover what we have
failed to discover. In This respect, however, the great difference between science
and philosophy reveals itself. Science shows a gradual development. There is not
the slightest doubt that science has advanced and continues to advance,
although some people speak skeptically about science. It cannot be seriously
doubted for an instant that we know very much more about nature, for example,
than people living in former centuries knew. There is unquestionably some kind
of advance shown in science, but if we are perfectly honest, a similar kind of
advance cannot be discovered in philosophy.
The same great issues are discussed nowadays that were discussed in the time
of Plato. When for a time it seemed as though a certain question were definitely
settled, soon the same question comes up again and has to be discussed and
reconsidered. It was characteristic of the work of the philosopher that he
always had to begin at the beginning again. He never takes anything for
granted. He feels that every solution to any philosophical problem is not
certain or sure enough, and he feels that he must begin all over again in
settling the problem. There is, then, this difference between science and
philosophy which makes us very skeptical about any future advance of philosophy.
Still we might believe that times may change, and that we might possibly find
the true philosophical system. But this hope is in vain, for we can find
reasons why philosophy has failed, and must fail, to produce lasting scientific
results as science has done. If these reasons are good then we shall be
justified in not trusting in any system of philosophy, and in believing that no
such system will come forward in the future.
Let me say at once that these reasons do not lie in the difficulty of
the problems with which philosophy deals; neither are they to be found in the weakness
and incapacity of human understanding. If they lay there, it could easily be
conceived that human understanding and reason might develop, that if we are not
intelligent enough now our successors might be intelligent enough to develop a
system. No, the real reason is to be found in a curious misunderstanding and
misinterpretation of the nature of philosophy; it lies in the failure to
distinguish between the scientific attitude and the philosophical attitude. It lies
in the idea that the nature of philosophy and science are more or less the
same, that they both consist of systems of true propositions about the world.
In reality philosophy is never a system of propositions and therefore quite
different from science.
The proper understanding of the relationship between
philosophy on one side and of the sciences on the other side is, I think, the
best way of gaining insight into the nature of philosophy. We will therefore
start with an investigation of this relationship and its historical
development. This will furnish us the necessary facts in order to predict the
future of philosophy. The future, of course, is always a matter of historical
conjecture, because it can be calculated only from past and present experiences.
So we ask now: what has the nature of philosophy been conceived to be in
comparison with that of the sciences, and how has it developed in the course of
history? In its beginnings, as you
perhaps know, philosophy was considered to be simply another name for the
"search for truth"-it was identical with science. Men who pursued the
truth for its own sake were called philosophers, and there was no distinction
made between men of science and philosophers.
A little change was brought about in this situation by Socrates.
Socrates, one might say, despised science. He did not believe in all the
speculations about astronomy and about the structure of the universe in which
the early philosophers indulged. He believed one could never gain any certain
knowledge about these matters and he restricted his investigations to the
nature of human character. He was not a man of science, he had no faith in it,
and yet we all acknowledge him to be one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived.
It is not Socrates, however, who created the antagonism that we find to exist
later on between science and philosophy. In fact, his successors combined very
well the study of human nature with the science of the stars and of the
universe. Philosophy remained united with the various sciences until gradually
the latter branched off from philosophy. In this way, perhaps, mathematics, astronomy,
mechanics and medicine became independent one after the other and a difference
between philosophy and science was created. Nevertheless some kind of unity or
identity of the two persisted, we might say, almost to modern times, i.e., until
the nineteenth century. I believe we can say truthfully that there are certain
sciences-I am thinking particularly of physics which were not completely
separated from philosophy until the nineteenth century. Even now some
university chairs for theoretical physics are officially labelled chairs of
"natural philosophy." It was in the nineteenth century also that the
real antagonism began, with a certain feeling of unfriendliness developing on
the part of the philosopher toward the scientist and the scientist toward the
philosopher. This feeling arose when philosophy claimed to possess a nobler and
better method of discovering truth than the scientific method of observation
and experiment. In Germany at the beginning of the nineteenth century
Schelling, Fichte, and Hegel believed that there was some kind of royal path
leading to truth which was reserved for the philosopher, whereas the scientist
walked the pathway of the vulgar and very tedious experimental method, which required
so much merely mechanical technique. They thought that they could attain the
same truth that the scientist was trying to find but could discover it in a
much easier way by taking a short cut that was reserved for the very highest
minds, only for the philosophical genius. About this, however, I will not speak
because it may be regarded, I think, as having been superseded. There is
another view, however, which tried to distinguish between science and
philosophy by saying that philosophy dealt with the most general truths that
could be known about the world and that science dealt with the more particular
truths. It is this last view of the nature of philosophy that I must discuss
shortly tonight as it will help us to understand what will follow. This opinion
that philosophy is the science that deals with those most general truths which
do not belong to the field of any special science is the most common view that
you find in nearly all of the text books; it has been adopted by the majority
of philosophical writers in our present day.
It is generally believed that as, for example, chemistry
concerns itself with the true propositions about the different chemical
compounds and physics with the truth about physical behavior, so philosophy
deals with the most general questions concerning the nature of matter.
Similarly, as history investigates the various chains of single happenings
which determine the fate of the human race, so philosophy (as "philosophy
of history") is supposed to discover the general principles which govern
all those happenings. In this way, philosophy, conceived as the science dealing
with the most general truths, is believed to give us what might be called a
universal picture of the world, a general world-view in which all the different
truths of the special sciences find their places and are unified into one great
picture-a goal which the special sciences themselves are thought incapable of
reaching as they are not general enough and are concerned only with particular features
and parts of the great whole. This so-called "synoptic view" of
philosophy, holding as it does that philosophy is also a science, only one of a
more general character than the special sciences, has, it seems to me, led to
terrible confusion. On the one hand it has given to the philosopher the
character of the scientist. He sits in his library, he consults innumerable
books, he works at his desk and studies various opinions of many philosophers
as a historian would compare his different sources, or as a scientist would do
while engaged in some particular pursuit in any special domain of knowledge; he
has all the bearing of a scientist and really believes that he is using in some
way the scientific method, only doing so on a more general scale. He regards
philosophy as a more distinguished and much nobler science than the others, but
not as essentially different from them. On the other hand, with this picture of
the philosopher in mind we find a very great contrast when we look at the
results that have been really achieved by philosophical work carried on in this
manner. There is all the outward appearance of the scientist in the
philosopher's mode of work but there is no similarity of results. Scientific
results go on developing, combining themselves with other achievements, and
receiving general acknowledgment, but there is no such thing to be discovered
in the work of the philosopher.
What are we to think of the situation? It has led to very
curious and rather ridiculous results. When we open a text book on philosophy
or when we view one of the large works of a present-day philosopher we often find
an immense amount of energy devoted to the task of finding out what philosophy is.
We do not find this in any of the other sciences. Physicists or historians do
not have to spend pages to find out what physics or history are. Even those who
agree that philosophy in some way is the system of the most general truths
explain this generality in rather different ways. I will not go into detail
with respect to these varying definitions. Let me just mention that some say
that philosophy is the "science of values" because they believe that the
most general issues to which all questions finally lead have to do with value
in some way or another. Others say that it is epistemology, i.e. the theory of
knowledge, because the theory of knowledge is supposed to deal with the most
general principles on which all particular truths rest. One of the consequences
usually drawn by the adherents of the view we are discussing is that philosophy
is either partly or entirely metaphysics. And metaphysics is supposed to be
some kind of a structure built over and partly resting on the structure of
science but towering into lofty heights which are far beyond the reach of all
the sciences and of experience. We see from all this that even those who adopt
the definition of philosophy as the most general science cannot agree about its
essential nature. This is certainly a little ridiculous and some future
historian a few hundred or a thousand years from now will think it very curious
that discussion about the nature of philosophy was taken so seriously in our
days. There must be something wrong when a discussion leads to such confusion.
There are also very definite positive reasons why "generality" cannot
be used as the characteristic that distinguishes philosophy from the"
special" sciences, but I will not dwell upon them, but try to reach a
positive conclusion in some shorter way. When I spoke of Socrates a little
while ago I pointed out that his thoughts were, in a certain sense, opposed to
the natural sciences; his philosophy, therefore, was certainly not identical
with the sciences, and it was not the "most general" one of them. It was
rather a sort of Wisdom of Life. But the important feature which we should
observe in Socrates, in order to understand his particular attitude as well as
the nature of philosophy, is that this wisdom that dealt with human nature and
human behavior consists essentially of a special method, different from the
method of science and, therefore, not leading to any "scientific"
results. All of you have probably read some of Plato's Dialogues, wherein he pictures
Socrates as giving and receiving questions and answers. If you observe what was
really done-or what Socrates tried to do-you discover that he usually did not
arrive at certain definite truths which would appear at the end of the dialogue
but the whole investigation was carried on for the primary purpose of making
clear what was meant when certain questions were asked or when certain words
were used. In one of the Platonic Dialogues, for instance, Socrates asks
"What is Justice?"; he receives various answers to his question, and
in turn he asks what was meant by these answers, why a particular word was used
in this way or that way, and it usually turns out that his disciple or opponent
is not at all clear about his own opinion. In short, Socrates' philosophy
consists of what we may call "The Pursuit of Meaning." He tried to
clarify thought by analyzing the meaning of our expressions and the real sense
of our propositions. Here then we find a definitive contrast between this
philosophic method, which has for its object the discovery of meaning, and the
method of the sciences, which have for their object the discovery of truth. In
fact, before I go any farther, let me state shortly and clearly that I believe
Science should be defined as the "pursuit of truth" and Philosophy as
the "pursuit of meaning."
Socrates has set the example of the true philosophic method
for all times. But I shall have to explain this method from the modern point of
view. When we make a statement about anything we do this by pronouncing a sentence
and the sentence stands for the proposition. This proposition is either true or
false, but before we can know or decide whether it is true or false we must
know what this proposition says. We must know the meaning of the proposition
first. After we know its sense we may be able to find out whether it is true or
not. These two things, of course, are inseparably connected. I cannot find out
the truth without knowing the meaning, and if I know the meaning of the
proposition I shall at least know the beginning of some path that will lead to
the discovery of the truth or falsity of the proposition even if I am unable to
find it at present. It is my opinion that the future of philosophy hinges on
this distinction between the discovery of sense and the discovery of truth. How
do we decide what the sense of a proposition is, or what we mean by a sentence
which is spoken, written, or printed? We try to present to ourselves the significance
of the different words that we have learned to use, and then endeavor to find
sense in the proposition. Sometimes we can do so and sometimes we cannot; the
latter case happens, unfortunately, most frequently with propositions which are
supposed to be "philosophical."But how can we be quite sure that we
really know and understand what we mean when we make an assertion? What is the
ultimate criterion of its sense? The answer is this: We know the meaning of a
proposition when we are able to indicate exactly the circumstances under which
it would be true (or, what amounts to the same, the circumstances which would
make it false).
The description of these circumstances is absolutely the
only way in which the meaning of a sentence can be made clear. After it has
been made clear we can proceed to look for the actual circumstances in the
world and decide whether they make our proposition true or false. There is no
vital difference between the ways we decide about truth and falsity in science
and in everyday life. Science develops in the same ways in which does knowledge
in daily life. The method of verification is essentially the same; only the facts
by which scientific statements are verified are usually more difficult to observe.
It seems evident that a scientist or a philosopher when he propounds a proposition
must of necessity know what he is talking about before he proceeds to find out
its truth. But it is very remarkable that oftentimes it has happened in the
history of human thought that thinkers have tried to find out whether a certain
proposition was true or false before being clear about the meaning of it,
before really knowing what it was they were desirous of finding out. This has
been the case sometimes even in scientific investigations, instances of which I
will quote shortly. And it has, I am almost tempted to say, nearly always been
the case in traditional philosophy. As I have stated, the scientist has two
tasks. He must find out the truth of a proposition and he must also find out
the meaning of it, or it must be found out for him, but usually he is able to
find it for himself. In so far as the scientist does find out the hidden
meaning of the propositions which he uses in his science he is a philosopher.
All of the great scientists have given wonderful examples of this philosophical
method. They have discovered the real significance of words which were used
quite commonly in the beginning of science but of which nobody had ever given a
perfectly clear and definite account. When Newton discovered the concept of mass
he was at that time really a philosopher. The greatest example of this type of
discovery in modern times is Einstein's analysis of the meaning of the word
"simultaneity" as it is used in physics. Continually, something is
happening "at the same time" in New York and San Francisco, and
although people always thought they knew perfectly well what was meant by such
a statement, Einstein was the first one who made it really clear and did away
with certain unjustified assumptions concerning time that had been made without
anyone being aware of it. This was a real philosophical achievement-the
discovery of meaning by a logical clarification of a proposition.
I could give more instances, but perhaps these two will be
sufficient. We see that meaning and truth are linked together by the process of
verification; but the first is found by mere reflection about possible
circumstances in the world, while the second is decided by really discovering
the existence or nonexistence of those circumstances. The reflection in the
first case is the philosophic method of which Socrates' dialectical proceeding
has afforded us the simplest example. From what I have said so far it might
seem that philosophy would simply have to be defined as the science of meaning,
as, for example, astronomy is the science of the heavenly bodies, or zoology
the science of animals, and that philosophy would be a science just as other
sciences, only its subject would be different, namely, "Meaning."
This is the point of view taken in a very excellent book, The Practice of
Philosophy, by Susan K. Langer. The author has seen quite clearly that
philosophy has to do with the pursuit of meaning, but she believes the pursuit
of meaning can lead to a science, to "a set of true propositions"-for
that is the correct interpretation of the term "science." Physics is
nothing but a system of truths about physical bodies. Astronomy is a set of
true propositions about the heavenly bodies, etc. But philosophy is not a
science in this sense. There can be no science of meaning, because there cannot
be any set of true propositions about meaning. The reason for this is that in
order to arrive at the meaning of a sentence or of a proposition we must go
beyond propositions. For we cannot hope to explain the meaning of a proposition
merely by presenting another proposition. When I ask somebody, "What is
the meaning of this or that?" he must answer by a sentence that would try
to describe the meaning. But he cannot ultimately succeed in this, for his
answering sentence would be but another proposition and I would be perfectly
justified in asking "What do you mean by this?" We would perhaps go
on defining what he meant by using different words, and repeat his thought over
and over again by using new sentences. I could always go on asking "But
what does this new proposition mean?" You see, there would never be any
end to this kind of inquiry, the meaning could never be clarified, if there
were no other way of arriving at it than by a series of propositions. An
example will make the above clear, and I believe you will all understand it
immediately. Whenever you come across a difficult word for which you desire to
find the meaning you look it up in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
The definition of the word is given in various terms. If you
don't happen to know them you look up these terms. However, this procedure can't
go on indefinitely. Finally you will arrive at very simple terms for which you
will not find any explanation in the encyclopedia. What are these terms? They
are the terms which cannot be defined any more. You will admit that there are
such terms. If I say, e.g., that the lamp shade is yellow, you might ask me to
describe what I mean by yellow-and I could not do it. I should have to show you
some color and say that this is yellow, but I should be perfectly unable to
explain it to you by means of any sentences or words. If you had never seen
yellow and I were not in a position to show you any yellow color it would be
absolutely impossible for me to make clear what I meant when I uttered the
word. And the blind man, of course, will never be able to understand what the
word stands for. All of our definitions must end by some demonstration, by some
activity. There may be certain words at the meaning of which one may arrive by certain
mental activities just as I can arrive at the signification of a word which
denotes color by showing the color itself. It is impossible to define a color-it
has to be shown. Reflection of some kind is necessary so that we may understand
the use of certain words. We have to reflect, perhaps, about the way in which
we learn these words, and there are also many ways of reflection which make it
clear to us what we mean by various propositions. Think, for example, of the
term "simultaneity" of events occurring in different places.
To find what is really meant by the term we have to go into
an analysis of the proposition and discover how the simultaneity of events
occurring in different places is really determined, as was done by Einstein; we
have to point to certain actual experiments and observations. This should lead
to the realization that philosophical activities can never be replaced and
expressed by a set of propositions. The discovery of the meaning of any
proposition must ultimately be achieved by some act, some immediate procedure,
for instance, as the showing of yellow; it cannot be given in a proposition.
Philosophy, the "pursuit of meaning," therefore cannot possibly consist
of propositions; it cannot be a science. The pursuit of meaning consequently is
nothing but a sort of mental activity. Our conclusion is that philosophy was
misunderstood when it was thought that philosophical results could be expressed
in propositions, and that there could be a system of philosophy consisting of a
system of propositions which would represent the answers to
"philosophical" questions. There are no specific
"philosophical" truths which would contain the solution of specific
"philosophical" problems, but philosophy has the task of finding the
meaning of all problems and their solutions. It must be defined as the activity
of finding meaning. Philosophy is an activity, not a science, but this
activity, of course, is at work in every single science continually, because
before the sciences can discover the truth or falsity of a proposition they
have to get at the meaning first. And sometimes in the course of their work
they are surprised to find, by the contradictory results at which they arrive,
that they have been using words without a perfectly clear meaning, and then
they will have to turn to the philosophical activity of clarification, and they
cannot go on with the pursuit of truth before the pursuit of meaning has been
successful. In this way philosophy is an extremely important factor within
science and it very well deserves to bear the name of "The Queen of
Sciences." The Queen of Sciences is not itself a science. It is an
activity which is needed by all scientists and pervades all their other
activities. But all real problems are scientific questions, there are no
others. And what was the matter with those great questions that have been looked
upon-or rather looked up to-as specific "philosophical problems" for
so many centuries? Here we must distinguish two cases. In the first place, there
are a great many questions which look like questions because they are formed
according to a certain grammatical order but which nevertheless are not real
questions, since it can easily be shown that the words, as they are put
together, do not make logical sense. If I should ask, for instance: "Is
blue more identical than music?," you would see immediately that there is
no meaning in this sentence, although it does not violate the rules of English
grammar. The sentence is not a question at all, but just a series of words. Now,
a careful analysis shows that this is the case with most so-called
philosophical problems. They look like questions and it is very difficult to
recognize them as nonsensical, but logical analysis proves them none the less
to be merely some kind of confusion of words.
After this has been found out the question itself disappears
and we are perfectly peaceful in our philosophical minds; we know that there
can be no answers because there were no questions, the problems do not exist
any longer. In the second place, there are some "philosophical"
problems which prove to be real questions. But of these it can always be shown
by proper analysis that they are capable of being solved by the methods of
science, although we may not be able to apply these methods at present for
merely technical reasons. We can at least say what would have to be done in
order to answer the question even if we cannot actually do it with the means at
our disposal. In other words: problems of this kind have no special
"philosophical" character, but are simply scientific questions. They
are always answerable in principle, if not in practice, and the answer can be
given only by scientific investigation. Thus the fate of all
"philosophical problems" is this: Some of them will disappear by
being shown to be mistakes and misunderstandings of our language and the others
will be found to be ordinary scientific questions in disguise. These remarks, I
think, determine the whole future of philosophy. Several great philosophers
have recognized the essence of philosophical thinking with comparative clarity,
although they have given no elaborate expression to it. Kant, e.g., used to say
in his lectures that philosophy cannot be taught. However, if it were a science
such as geology or astronomy, why then should it not be taught? It would then,
in fact, be quite possible to teach it. Kant therefore had some kind of a
suspicion that it was not a science when he stated "The only thing I can
teach is philosophizing." By using the verb and rejecting the noun in this
connection Kant indicated clearly, though almost involuntarily, the peculiar
character of philosophy as an activity, thereby to a certain extent
contradicting his books, in which he tries to build up philosophy after the
manner of a scientific system.
A similar instance of the same insight is afforded by
Leibniz. When he founded the Prussian Academy of Science in Berlin and sketched
out the plans for its constitution, he assigned a place in it to all the
sciences, but Philosophy was not one of them. Leibniz found no place for
philosophy in the system of the sciences because he was evidently aware that it
is not a pursuit of a particular kind of truth, but an activity that must
pervade every search for truth. The view which I am advocating has at the
present time been most clearly expressed by Ludwig Wittgenstein; he states his
point in these sentences.' "The object of philosophy is the logical
clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a theory but an activity. The
result of philosophy is not a number of 'philosophical propositions,' but to
make propositions clear." This is exactly the view which I have been
trying to explain here. We can now understand historically why philosophy could
be regarded as a very general science: it was misunderstood in this way because
the "meaning" of propositions might seem to be something very
"general," since in some way it forms the foundation of all
discourse. We can also understand historically why in ancient times philosophy
was identical with science: this was because at that time all the concepts
which are used in the description of the world were extremely vague. The task
of science was determined by the fact that there were no clear concepts. They
had to be clarified by slow development, the chief endeavor of scientific
investigation had to be directed towards this clarification, i.e., it had to be
philosophical, no distinction could be made between science and philosophy. At
the present time we also find facts which prove the truth of our statements. In
our days certain specific fields of study such as ethics and aesthetics are
called "philosophical" and are supposed to form part of philosophy. However,
philosophy, being an activity, is a unit which cannot be divided into parts or
independent disciplines. Why, then, are these pursuits called philosophy?
Because they are only at the beginnings of the scientific stage; and I think
this is true to a certain extent also of psychology. Ethics and esthetics
certainly do not yet possess sufficiently clear concepts, most of their work is
still devoted to clarifying them, and therefore it may justly be called philosophical.
But in the future they will, of course, become part of the great system of the
sciences. It is my hope that the philosophers of the future will see that it is
impossible for them to adopt, even in outward appearance, the methods of the scientists.
Most books on philosophy seem to be, I must confess, ridiculous
when judged from the most elevated point of view. They have all the appearance of
being extremely scientific books because they seem to use the scientific language.
However, the finding of meaning cannot be done in the same way as the finding
of truth. This difference will come out much more clearly in the future. There
is a good deal of truth in the way in which Schopenhauer (although his own
thinking seems to me to be very imperfect indeed) describes the contrast
between the real philosopher and the academic scholar who regards philosophy as
a subject of scientific pursuit. Schopenhauer had a very clear instinct when he
spoke disparagingly of the "professorial philosophy of the professors of
philosophy." His opinion was that one should not try to teach philosophy
at all but only the history of philosophy and logic; and a good deal may be
said in favor of this view. I hope I have not been misunderstood as though I were
advocating an actual separation of scientific and philosophical work. On the contrary,
in most cases future philosophers will have to be scientists because it will be
necessary for them to have a certain subject matter on which to work-and they
will find cases of confused or vague meaning particularly in the foundations of
the sciences. But, of course, clarification of meaning will be needed very
badly also in a great many questions with which we are concerned in our
ordinary human life. Some thinkers, and perhaps some of the strongest minds
among them, may be especially gifted in this practical field. In such instances,
the philosopher may not have to be a scientist-but in all cases he will have to
be a man of deep understanding. In short, he will have to be a wise man. I am
convinced that our view of the nature of philosophy will be generally adopted
in the future; and the consequence will be that it will no longer be attempted
to teach philosophy as a system. We shall teach the special sciences and their
history in the true philosophical spirit of searching for clarity and, by doing
this, we shall develop the philosophical mind of future generations. This is
all we can do, but it will be a great step in the mental progress of our race.
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