Part 1 (2/2)

IV. DEPARTMENTS OF PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY: LOGIC, ETHICS AND ESTHETICS.-In the domain of human activities, to the right regulation of which practical philosophy is directed, we may distinguish two departments of mental activity, namely _intellectual_ and _volitional_, and besides these the whole department of _external_, executive or bodily activity. In general the right regulation of acts may be said to consist in directing them to the realization of some ideal; for all cognitive acts this ideal is the _true_, for all appet.i.tive or volitional acts it is the _good_, while for all external operations it may be either the _beautiful_ or the _useful_-the respective objects of the fine arts and the mechanical arts or crafts.

_Logic_, as a practical science, studies the mental acts and processes involved in discovering and proving truths and systematizing these into sciences, with a view to directing these acts and processes aright in the accomplishment of this complex task. Hence it has for its subject-matter, in a certain sense, _all_ the data of human experience, or whatever can be an object of human thought. But it studies these data not directly or in themselves or for their own sake, but only in so far as our acts of reason, which form its direct object, are brought to bear upon them. In all the other sciences we employ thought to study the various objects of thought as things, events, realities; and hence these may be called ”real”

sciences, _scientiae reales_; while in Logic we study thought itself, and even here not speculatively for its own sake or as a reality (as we study it for instance in Psychology), but practically, as a process capable of being directed towards the discovery and proof of truth; and hence in contradistinction to the other sciences as ”real,” we call Logic _the_ ”rational” science, _scientia rationalis_. Scholastic philosophers express this distinction by saying that while Speculative Philosophy studies _real_ being (_Ens Reale_), or the objects of direct thought (_objecta primae intentionis mentis_), Logic studies the being which is the _product of thought_ (_Ens Rationis_), or objects of reflex thought (_objecta secundae intentionis mentis_).(12) The mental processes involved in the attainment of scientific truth are conception, judgment and inference; moreover these processes have to be exercised methodically by the combined application of a.n.a.lysis and synthesis, or induction and deduction, to the various domains of human experience. All these processes, therefore, and the methods of their application, const.i.tute the proper subject-matter of Logic. It has been more or less a matter of debate since the days of Aristotle whether Logic should be regarded as a department of philosophical science proper, or rather as a preparatory discipline, an instrument or _organon_ of reasoning-as the collection of Aristotle's own logical treatises was called,-and so as a vestibule or introduction to philosophy. And there is a similar difference of opinion as to whether or not it is advisable to set down Logic as the first department to be studied in the philosophical curriculum. Such doubts arise from differences of view as to the questions to be investigated in Logic, and the point to which such investigations should be carried therein. It is possible to distinguish between a more elementary treatment of thought-processes with the avowedly practical aim of setting forth canons of inference and method which would help and train the mind to reason and investigate correctly; and a more philosophical treatment of those processes with the speculative aim of determining their ultimate significance and validity as factors of knowledge, as attaining to truth, as productive of science and cert.i.tude. It is only the former field of investigation that is usually accorded to Logic nowadays; and thus understood Logic ought to come first in the curriculum as a preparatory training for philosophical studies, accompanied, however, by certain elementary truths from Psychology regarding the nature and functions of the human mind. The other domain of deeper and more speculative investigation was formerly explored in what was regarded as a second portion of logical science, under the t.i.tle of ”Critical” Logic-_Logica Critica_. In modern times this is regarded as a distinct department of Speculative Philosophy, under the various t.i.tles of _Epistemology_, _Criteriology_, or the _Theory of Knowledge_.

_Ethics or Moral Philosophy_ (????, _mos_, _mores_, morals, conduct) is that department of practical philosophy which has for its subject-matter all human acts, _i.e._ all acts elicited or commanded by the will of man considered as a free, rational and responsible agent. And it studies human conduct with the practical purpose of discovering the ultimate end or object of this conduct, and the principles whereby it must be regulated in order to attain to this end. Ethics must therefore a.n.a.lyse and account for the distinction of _right_ and _wrong_ or _good_ and _bad_ in human conduct, for its feature of _morality_. It must examine the motives that influence conduct: pleasure, well-being, happiness, duty, obligation, moral law, etc. The supreme determining factor in all such considerations will obviously be _the ultimate end of man_, whatever this may be: his destiny as revealed by a study of his nature and place in the universe.

Now the nature of man is studied in Psychology, as are also the nature, conditions and effects of his free acts, and the facilities, dispositions and forms of character consequent on these. Furthermore, not only from the study of man in Psychology, but from the study of the external universe in Cosmology, we ama.s.s data from which in Natural Theology we establish the existence of a Supreme Being. We then prove in Ethics that the last end of man, his highest perfection, consists in knowing, loving, serving, and thus glorifying G.o.d, both in this life and in the next. Hence we can see how these branches of speculative philosophy subserve the practical science of morals. And since a man's interpretation of the moral distinctions-as of right or wrong, meritorious or blameworthy, autonomous or of obligation-which he recognizes as pertaining to his own actions-since his interpretation of these distinctions is so intimately bound up with his religious outlook and beliefs, it is at once apparent that the science of Ethics will be largely influenced and determined by the system of speculative philosophy which inspires it, whether this be Theism, Monism, Agnosticism, etc. No doubt the science of Ethics must take as its data all sorts of moral beliefs, customs and practices prevalent at any time among men; but it is not a speculative science which would merely aim at _a posteriori_ inferences or inductive generalizations from these data; it is a practical, _normative_ science which aims at discovering the truth as to what is the right and the wrong in human conduct, and at pointing out the right application of the principles arising out of this truth. Hence it is of supreme importance for the philosopher of morals to determine whether the human race has really been vouchsafed a Divine Revelation, and, convincing himself that Christianity contains such a revelation, to recognize the possibility of supplementing and perfecting what his own natural reason can discover by what the Christian religion teaches about the end of man as the supreme determining principle of human conduct. Not that he is to take the revealed truths of Christianity as principles of moral _philosophy_; for these are the principles of the _supernatural __ Christian Theology_ of human morals; but that as a Christian philosopher, _i.e._ a philosopher who recognizes the truth of the Christian Revelation, he should reason out philosophically a science of Ethics which, so far as it goes, will be in harmony with the moral teachings of the Christian Religion, and will admit of being perfected by these. This recognition, as already remarked, will not be a hindrance but a help to him in exploring the wide domains of the individual, domestic, social and religious conduct of man; in determining, on the basis of theism established by natural reason, the right moral conditions and relations of man's conduct as an individual, as a member of the family, as a member of the state, and as a creature of G.o.d. The nature, source and sanction of authority, domestic, social and religious; of the dictate of conscience; of the natural moral law and of all positive law; of the moral virtues and vices-these are all questions which the philosopher of Ethics has to explore by the use of natural reason, and for the investigation of which the Christian philosopher of Ethics is incomparably better equipped than the philosopher who, though possessing the compa.s.s of natural reason, ignores the beacon lights of Divinely Revealed Truths.

_Esthetics_, or the _Philosophy of the Fine Arts_, is that department of philosophy which studies the conception of the _beautiful_ and its external expression in the works of nature and of man. The arts themselves, of course, whether concerned with the realization of the useful or of the beautiful, are distinct from sciences, even from practical sciences.(13) The _technique_ itself consists in a skill acquired by practice-by practice guided, however, by a set of practical canons or rules which are the ripe fruit of experience.(14) But behind every art there is always some background of more or less speculative truth. The conception of the _useful_, however which underlies the mechanical arts and crafts, is not an ultimate conception calling for any further a.n.a.lysis than it receives in the various special sciences and in metaphysics. But the conception of the _beautiful_ does seem to demand a special philosophical consideration. On the subjective or mental side the esthetic sense, artistic taste, the sentiment of the beautiful, the complex emotions accompanying such experience; on the objective side the elements or factors requisite to produce this experience; the relation of the esthetic to the moral, of the beautiful to the good and the true-these are all distinctly philosophical questions. Up to the present time, however, their treatment has been divided between the other departments of philosophy-psychology, cosmology, natural theology, general metaphysics, ethics-rather than grouped together to form an additional distinct department.

V. DEPARTMENTS OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY: METAPHYSICS.-The philosophy which studies the order realized in things apart from our activity, speculative philosophy, has been variously divided up into separate departments from the first origins of philosophical speculation.

When we remember that all intellectual knowledge of things involves the apprehension of _general_ truths or laws about these things, and that this apprehension of intelligible aspects common to a more or less extensive group of things involves the exercise of _abstraction_, we can understand how the whole domain of speculative knowledge, whether scientific or philosophical, can be differentiated into certain layers or levels, so to speak, according to various degrees of abstractness and universality in the intelligible aspects under which the data of our experience may be considered. On this principle Aristotle and the scholastics divided all speculative knowledge into three great domains, _Physics_, _Mathematics_ and _Metaphysics_, with their respective proper objects, _Change_, _Quant.i.ty_ and _Being_, objects which are successively apprehended in three great stages of abstraction traversed by the human mind in its effort to understand and explain the Universal Order of things.

And as a matter of fact perhaps the first great common and most obvious feature which strikes the mind reflecting on the visible universe is the feature of all-pervading change (????s??), movement, evolution, progress and regress, growth and decay; we see it everywhere in a variety of forms, mechanical or local change, quant.i.tative change, qualitative change, vital change. Now the knowledge acquired by the study of things under this common aspect is called _Physics_. Here the mind abstracts merely from the individualizing differences of this change in individual things, and fixes its attention on the great, common, sensible aspect itself of visible change.

But the mind can abstract even from the sensible changes that take place in the physical universe and fix its attention on a _static_ feature in the changing things. This static element (t? ?????t??), which the intellect apprehends in _material_ things as naturally inseparable from them (?????t?? ???? ?? ????st??), is their _quant.i.ty_, their extension in s.p.a.ce. When the mind strips a material object of all its visible, sensible properties-on which its mechanical, physical and chemical changes depend-there still remains as an object of thought a something formed of parts outside parts in three dimensions of s.p.a.ce. This _abstract_ quant.i.ty, _quant.i.tas intelligibilis_-whether as continuous or discontinuous, as _magnitude_ or _mult.i.tude_-is the proper object of _Mathematics_.

But the mind can penetrate farther still into the reality of the material data which it finds endowed with the attributes of change and quant.i.ty: it can eliminate from the object of its thought even this latter or mathematical attribute, and seize on something still more fundamental. The very essence, substance, nature, being itself, of the thing, the underlying subject and root principle of all the thing's operations and attributes, is something deeper than any of these attributes, something at least mentally distinct from these latter (t? ?????t?? ?a? ????st??): and this something is the proper object of man's highest speculative knowledge, which Aristotle called ? p??t? f???s?f?a, _philosophia prima_, the _first_ or _fundamental_ or _deepest_ philosophy.(15)

But he gave this latter order of knowledge another very significant t.i.tle: he called it _theology_ or _theological science_, ?p?st?? ?e???????, by a denomination derived _a potiori parte_, from its n.o.bler part, its culmination in the knowledge of G.o.d. Let us see how. For Aristotle _first philosophy_ is the science of _being and its essential attributes_.(16) Here the mind apprehends its object as _static_ or abstracted from change, and as _immaterial_ or abstracted from quant.i.ty, the fundamental attribute of material reality-as ?????t?? ?a? ????st??. Now it is the substance, nature, or essence of _the things of our direct and immediate experience_, that forms the proper object of this highest science. But in these things the substance, nature, or essence, is not found in _real and actual_ separation from the material attributes of change and quant.i.ty; it is _considered_ separately from these only by an effort of mental abstraction. Even the nature of man himself is not wholly immaterial; nor is the spiritual principle in man, his soul, entirely exempt from material conditions. Hence in so far as first philosophy studies the being of the things of our direct experience, its object is immaterial only _negatively_ or _by mental abstraction_. But does this study bring within the scope of our experience any being or reality that is _positively and actually_ exempt from all change and all material conditions? If so the study of this being, the Divine Being, will be the highest effort, the crowning perfection, of _first philosophy_; which we may therefore call the _theological_ science. ”If,” writes Aristotle,(17) ”there really exists a substance absolutely immutable and immaterial, in a word, a Divine Being-as we hope to prove-then such Being must be the absolutely first and supreme principle, and the science that attains to such Being will be theological.”

In this triple division of speculative philosophy into Physics, Mathematics, and Metaphysics, it will naturally occur to one to ask: Did Aristotle distinguish between what he called Physics and what we nowadays call the special physical sciences? He did. These special _a.n.a.lytic_ studies of the various departments of the physical universe, animate and inanimate, Aristotle described indiscriminately as ”partial” sciences: a?

?? ??e? ?p?st???-?p?st?a? ?? ??e? ?e??e?a?. These descriptive, inductive, comparative studies, proceeding _a posteriori_ from effects to causes, he conceived rather as a preparation for scientific knowledge proper; this latter he conceived to be a _synthetic_, deductive explanation of things, in the light of some common aspect detected in them as principle or cause of all their concrete characteristics.(18) Such synthetic knowledge of things, in the light of some such common aspect as change, is what he regarded as scientific knowledge, meaning thereby what we mean by philosophical knowledge.(19) What he called _Physics_, therefore, is what we nowadays understand as _Cosmology_ and _Psychology_.(20)

Mathematical science Aristotle likewise regarded as science in the full and perfect sense, _i.e._ as philosophical. But just as we distinguish nowadays between the special physical and human sciences on the one hand, and the philosophy of external nature and man on the other, so we may distinguish between the special mathematical sciences and a Philosophy of Mathematics: with this difference, that while the former groups of special sciences are mainly inductive the mathematical group is mainly deductive.

Furthermore, the Philosophy of Mathematics-which investigates questions regarding the ultimate significance of mathematical concepts, axioms and a.s.sumptions: unity, mult.i.tude, magnitude, quant.i.ty, s.p.a.ce, time, etc.-does not usually form a separate department in the philosophical curriculum: its problems are dealt with as they arise in the other departments of Metaphysics.

Before outlining the modern divisions of Metaphysics we may note that this latter term was not used by Aristotle. We owe it probably to Andronicus of Rhodes ( 40 B.C.), who, when arranging a complete edition of Aristotle's works, placed next in order after the _Physics_, or physical treatises, all the parts and fragments of the master's works bearing upon the immutable and immaterial object of the _philosophia prima_; these he labelled t? et? t? (???a) f?s??a, _post physica_, the books _after the physics_: hence the name _metaphysics_,(21) applied to this highest section of speculative philosophy. It was soon noticed that the term, thus fortuitously applied to such investigations, conveyed a very appropriate description of their scope and character if interpreted in the sense of ”_supra_-physica,” or ”_trans_-physica”: inasmuch as the object of these investigations is a _hyperphysical_ object, an object that is either positively and really, or negatively and by abstraction, beyond the material conditions of quant.i.ty and change. St. Thomas combines both meanings of the term when he says that the study of its subject-matter comes naturally _after_ the study of physics, and that we naturally pa.s.s from the study of the sensible to that of the suprasensible.(22)

The term _philosophia prima_ has now only an historical interest; and the term _theology_, used without qualification, is now generally understood to signify _supernatural_ theology.

VI. DEPARTMENTS OF METAPHYSICS: COSMOLOGY, PSYCHOLOGY, AND NATURAL THEOLOGY.-Nowadays the term _Metaphysics_ is understood as synonymous with speculative philosophy: the investigation of the being, nature, or essence, and essential attributes of the realities which are also studied in the various special sciences: the search for the _ultimate_ grounds, reasons and causes of these realities, of which the proximate explanations are sought in the special sciences. We have seen that it has for its special object that most abstract aspect of reality whereby the latter is conceived as changeless and immaterial; and we have seen that a being may have these attributes either by mental abstraction merely, or in actual reality. In other words the philosophical study of things that are really material not only suggests the possibility, but establishes the actual existence, of a Being that is really changeless and immaterial: so that metaphysics in all its amplitude would be _the philosophical science of things that are negatively_ (by abstraction) _or positively_ (in reality) _immaterial_. This distinction suggests a division of metaphysics into _general_ and _special_ metaphysics. The former would be the philosophical study of _all_ being, considered by mental abstraction as immaterial; the latter would be the philosophical study of the really and positively changeless and immaterial Being,-G.o.d. The former would naturally fall into two great branches: the study of _inanimate_ nature and the study of _living_ things, _Cosmology_ and _Psychology_; while special metaphysics, the philosophical study of the _Divine_ Being, would const.i.tute _Natural Theology_. These three departments, one of special metaphysics and two of general metaphysics, would not be three distinct philosophical sciences, but three departments of the one speculative philosophical science. The standpoint would be the same in all three sections, _viz._ _being_ considered as _static and immaterial_ by _mental abstraction_: for whatever _positive_ knowledge we can reach about being that is really immaterial can be reached only through concepts derived from material being and applied a.n.a.logically to immaterial being.

_Cosmology_ and _Psychology_ divide between them the whole domain of man's immediate experience. Cosmology, utilizing not only the data of direct experience, but also the conclusions established by the a.n.a.lytic study of these data in the physical sciences, explores the origin, nature, and destiny of the material universe. Some philosophers include among the data of Cosmology all the phenomena of vegetative life, reserving sentient and rational life for Psychology; others include even sentient life in Cosmology, reserving the study of human life for Psychology, or, as they would call it, Anthropology.(23) The mere matter of location is of secondary importance. Seeing, however, that man embodies in himself all three forms of life, vegetative, sentient, and rational, all three would perhaps more naturally belong to Psychology, which would be the philosophical study of life in all its manifestations (????, the vital principle, the soul). Just as the conclusions of the physical sciences are the data of Cosmology, so the conclusions of the natural or biological sciences-Zoology, Botany, Physiology, Morphology, Cellular Biology, etc.-are the data of Psychology. Indeed in Psychology itself-especially in more recent years-it is possible to distinguish a positive, a.n.a.lytic, empirical study of the phenomena of consciousness, a study which would rank rather as a special than as an ultimate or philosophical science; and a synthetic, rational study of the results of this a.n.a.lysis, a study which would be strictly philosophical in character. This would have for its object to determine the origin, nature and destiny of living things in general and of man himself in particular. It would inquire into the nature and essential properties of living matter, into the nature of the subject of conscious states, into the operations and faculties of the human mind, into the nature of the human soul and its mode of union with the body, into the rationality of the human intellect and the freedom of the human will, the spirituality and immortality of the human soul, etc.

But since the human mind itself is the natural instrument whereby man acquires _all_ his knowledge, it will be at once apparent that the study of the phenomenon of _knowledge_ itself, of the _cognitive_ activity of the mind, can be studied, and must be studied, not merely as a natural phenomenon of the mind, but from the point of view of _its special significance as representative_ of objects other than itself, from the point of view of _its validity or invalidity_, _its truth or falsity_, and with the special aim of determining the scope and limitations and conditions of its objective validity. We have already referred to the study of human knowledge from this standpoint, in connexion with what was said above concerning Logic. It has a close kins.h.i.+p with Logic on the one hand, and with Psychology on the other; and nowadays it forms a distinct branch of speculative Philosophy under the t.i.tle of _Criteriology_, _Epistemology_, or the _Theory of Knowledge_.

Arising out of the data of our direct experience, external and internal, as studied in the philosophical departments just outlined, we find a variety of evidences all pointing beyond the domain of this direct experience to the supreme conclusion that there exists of necessity, distinct from this directly experienced universe, as its Creator, Conserver, and Ruler, its First Beginning and its Last End, its _Alpha_ and _Omega_, One Divine and Infinite Being, the Deity. The existence and attributes of the Deity, and the relations of man and the universe to the Deity, form the subject-matter of _Natural Theology_.

VII. DEPARTMENTS OF METAPHYSICS: ONTOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY.-According to the Aristotelian and scholastic conception speculative philosophy would utilize as data the conclusions of the special sciences-physical, biological, and human. It would try to reach a deeper explanation of their data by synthesizing these under the wider aspects of change, quant.i.ty, and being, thus bringing to light the ultimate causes, reasons, and explanatory principles of things. This whole study would naturally fall into two great branches: General Metaphysics (_Cosmology_ and _Psychology_), which would study things exempt from quant.i.ty and change not really but only by mental abstraction; and Special Metaphysics (_Natural Theology_), which would study the positively immaterial and immutable Being of the Deity.

This division of Metaphysics, thoroughly sound in principle, and based on a sane and rational view of the relation between the special sciences and philosophy, has been almost entirely(24) supplanted in modern times by a division which, abstracting from the erroneous att.i.tude that prompted it in the first instance, has much to recommend it from the standpoint of practical convenience of treatment. The modern division was introduced by Wolff (1679-1755), a German philosopher,-a disciple of Leibniz (1646-1716) and forerunner of Kant (1724-1804).(25) Influenced by the excessively deductive method of Leibniz' philosophy, which he sought to systematize and to popularize, he wrongly conceived the metaphysical study of reality as something wholly apart and separate from the inductive investigation of this same reality in the positive sciences. It comprised the study of the most fundamental and essential principles of being, considered in themselves; and the deductive application of these principles to the three great domains of actual reality, the corporeal universe, the human soul, and G.o.d. The study of the first principles of being in themselves would const.i.tute _General Metaphysics_, or _Ontology_ (??t??-?????). Their applications would const.i.tute three great departments of _Special Metaphysics_: _Cosmology_, which he described as ”transcendental” in opposition to the experimental physical sciences; _Psychology_, which he termed ”rational” in opposition to the empirical biological sciences; and finally Natural Theology, which he ent.i.tled _Theodicy_ (Te??-d???-d??a???), using a term invented by Leibniz for his essays in vindication of the wisdom and justice of Divine Providence notwithstanding the evils of the universe.

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