History of Western Philosophy

6.3.3 Further Considerations

The data of philosophy includes: the world; that includes being and human being and its layers of being; the civilizations and cultures of the world, and their systems of knowledge; the Western systems: the academic disciplines as data points in themselves and for their content.

6.4 A concept of philosophy

Above, I asked, "Can philosophy free itself of the limitations imposed by the crisis?"

The idea of philosophy instructing the other disciplines with authority of being separate, foundational, and infallible seems wrong. There is a point to the democracy of the disciplines it is that pure reason is not "the answer," experience must be at least an equal partner. But, what is philosophy? Under the sway of the traditional academic disciplines as influenced by the culture of the individual it would seem that philosophy is a separate discipline.

That is one view of philosophy and it is one that informs the entire debate on the nature of philosophy in the recent period including the views of Wittgenstein, Passmore, Rorty, Nozick and others Under such a view it is inevitable that any attempt of philosophy to instruct is bound to failure. And this failure, though influenced by external factors, is necessary on grounds of limited rationality. Following is a view of philosophy that is close to the core of [human] being.

In preliminary it accepts all foundational exercises. It locates identities and redundancies mere variations in expressions. It sets the exercises in opposition and where there is conflict, it resolves and, if necessary, eliminates. It synthesizes. It abstracts but retains the concrete in hierarchic communication with the abstract. It expands to embrace all being in its rest and its motion.

The preliminary conception is, as stated earlier, the intellectual endeavor that seeks ultimate understanding and knowledge.

Consider, now, the intellectual [and in what follows this will be understood to include the academic] enterprise as a whole: in its rational and experiential modes, its imaginative and its critical approaches. It includes what I called, above, the communal endeavor that labors or plays under the ideal of truth.

For those who have lost faith in truth the labor is under an ideal of the full potential of human knowledge. Can we attach a name to this? But more, we must go on beyond the sphere of the intellectual and reflect upon the interaction between the domain of mind as partially and imperfectly expressed in the intellectual sphere and the forward movement of civilization and of being. That ultimate realm of being will include basal levels at which knowledge and action are not merely interactive but not conceptually or essentially distinct these levels include the organismic and the social; and it will include the level of,

say, the sciences where knowledge predicts and is confirmed by experience within the laboratory. Knowledge thought is an active phase of experience; even in these non-basal domains thought and action or knowledge and being are not merely necessarily interactive but they do not exist without the other. Action is a tool of, essential to all thought and philosophy either indirectly through appeal to experience or directly by seeking out a course or path of action in interaction with thought.

See Thinkers and Actors

In The View From Nowhere [^1986], Thomas Nagel criticizes evolutionary epistemology as follows. The concern of philosophy is with the ultimate, the eternal, the timeless and therefore an epistemology based on the history of knowledge is an unsatisfactory epistemology This seems to be a misreading of how evolution and history might inform or be part of the "timeless discourse"

Compare "timeless discourse" to the "absolute space and time" of Newton. Then the space-time of Einstein is analogous to the timeless discourse as informed by special disciplines: art, religion, science, evolution and of course philosophy's own self-criticism and progress. By embedding discourse in the real it becomes timeless.

Earlier, I noted the obligations of intellectual pursuit, of philosophy and of the academic tradition. In various ways an obligation has been, de facto, the justification or founding of the social order. Two approaches to this are as follows. An approach that may be labeled dogmatic is to regard the social order as definite and given and to seek its justification. An alternative approach is to seek to place the social order within the universal.

This approach would be neutral to the distinction between criticism and justification. Further, in order to place the movement of society within the universal stream, this alternative will require the imaginative or speculative element, in interaction with selection through experience and reflection, that is necessary in the absence of complete rationality. The social order is placed in within the ultimate realm that is revealed in-process. Such placement is a form of criticism. Such criticism applies to all contexts including societies, individuals, disciplines, and thought being presented here.

Radical criticism by definition avoids self-criticism and therefore is defunct [paradoxical] as a program but is a spur to real criticism and advance. This is why I subscribe at times to a radical criticism especially in phases of learning and when I seek to overcome old and established modes of thought. However, the radical criticism is balanced by phases of speculation and construction. The constructive element is placed in context.

I referred to "That ultimate realm of being" it is ultimate in that it plays under the ideal of the realization of the full potential and possibilities of the world and being. There are obligations to or continuities with the local culture; but these are not limitations there is a balance between immediate and ultimate "needs." This ultimate realm that I have labeled [ Journey in Being | home ] can be thought of as true philosophy.

6.5 The education of the philosopher

It may be too much to ask that a philosopher be trained in all the disciplines sciences, arts and humanities and the professions law, engineering and medicine.

However, much of the disaffection between science and philosophy and much of the self-doubt within philosophy is due to the inability of philosophers to reflect and talk comfortably on science and due to the lack of appreciation of philosophical issues among scientists. I emphasize science because it is with science that philosophy has the greatest disaffection. It is true that there are distinctions among the disciplines and that the distinctions are good and valid. However, those distinctions are not absolute.

There is a level at which the disciplines merge even if the practitioners can see only difference and detail. Similarly there is a role for those who are comfortable with philosophy and, at least, a representative range of disciplines. I believe, and this is brought out and argued in [ Journey in Being | home ], that an "over-approach" is essential for real knowledge and being, will further both science, arts and philosophy will improve communication among the disciplines. I believe that this should be true for any open system; it follows essentially from [ Journey in Being | home ]

How will the requisite education occur? The seeds must be laid at least as early as the first stages of higher education. A number of approaches exist: dual degree programs, minor programs, elective course content. Problems with implementation include lack of serious content, and lack of serious intent these, of course, are related. A beginning might be with a small number of programs with select teachers in selected universities. All of this would be encouraged by a different social climate.

All change in education is experimental. One cannot say with complete honesty that such and such an approach will be a general improvement or even achieve such and such a result. That is because of the limited powers of rationality whether human or divine. But one can say, "This, I tentatively believe; and I submit the following reason." As far as action is concerned, one can choose between action or passivity. Action includes thought, speech, and changes. Passivity is waiting for desired change to come about by natural processes in the absence of human intervention.

Thus the seeds to be sewn are: the value theoretical and practical of an over-approach, a fully first-class education in philosophy, and sufficient exposure and experience in a range of disciplines. This begins in the undergraduate programs. It is something that continues through a lifetime. This, no doubt, is why Plato suggested that philosophy should be undertaken at the age of 50 as part of a life that integrated academia and service. "But," someone responds, "Plato lived about 2400 years ago, the nature of philosophy, the academic context, society was quite different then."

According to the American Philosophical Organization, 8300 people in the United States held philosophy Ph.D.'s in 1995 and 5900 of those Ph.D.'s were academically employed. From 1950 to 1994, 8076 [301 in 1994] doctoral degrees and 135739 [4691 in 1994] bachelor's degrees were awarded in philosophy in the United States. I omit world information because it is not as readily available but I guess that there must be at least 200,000 500,000 people worldwide with a formal education in philosophy.

Most people want a mainstream education, would prefer not to have an experimental program. But, with perhaps half a million degree holders in philosophy it would seem that there is sufficient room and there would be sufficient interest in a programs that incorporate the principles outlined above. There are programs that approach these principles; what is needed is a greater commitment among individuals, programs and society.

6.6 Journey in Being

Journey in Being | Home page continues the synthesis described above and begun in A Concept of Philosophy. The points from above include: Appeal to the whole mind: modes of understanding intuition or thought and sensing or perception

And continues to synthesize with an appeal to the whole being

Thought and knowledge as continuous with action as requiring action for confirmation and completion and as being conceptually only partially distinct from action: repeatable experiment is not enough, living out is essential and this leads to a systematic exploration of modes of perception and knowing; and to a system of experiments including the life and choices of an individual and a society.

I will repeat the essence of the conclusion of A Concept of Philosophy:

6.7 True Philosophy

Consider the intellectual enterprise as a whole, the sphere of intellect: rational and experiential, imaginative and critical. It includes the communal endeavor that plays under the ideal of truth and the full potential of knowledge. Can we attach a name to this? But more this is crucial, we must go on beyond intellect and reflect upon its interaction with the forward movements of civilization and of being. That ultimate realm of being will include primal levels at which knowledge and action are not merely interactive but not conceptually or essentially distinct these levels include the organismic and the social; and it will include the levels of, say, the sciences where knowledge predicts and is confirmed by experience within the laboratory.

Knowledge thought is an active phase of experience; even in these non-basal domains thought and action or knowledge and being are not merely necessarily interactive but they do not exist without the other. I referred to "That ultimate realm of being" it is ultimate in that it plays under the ideal of the realization of the full potential and possibilities of the world and being. There are obligations to or continuities with the local culture; but these are not limitations there is a balance between immediate and ultimate "needs." This ultimate realm [ Journey in Being | home ] can be thought of as true philosophy.

7 Transcendental Logic

I call transcendental logic the third transcendental method because I earlier identified two others, the first or Kant's and the second or Heidegger's transcendental methods.

Note that I have not here referred to Husserl's Transcendental Phenomenology as a transcendental method.

The third transcendental method is transcendental logic i.e. the possibility of derivation of synthetic / empirical proposotions by pure logic. The third method, outlined in Metaphysics and in Journey in Being does not truly make derivations possible by logic alone but assumes the single fact that something exists. The possibilities for the third method, contrary to what might be expected, are substantial. As an alternative to derivation from from a single fact, the third method may be regarded as an a way to generate an axiomatic system from a single axiom and the laws of logic.

Various systems may result from additional axioms that purport to model the nature of our world; these would include the first and second methods. Also included would be the variety of logics. A question that arises is "Do the laws of logic have synthetic foundation?" or "What is the nature of the world such that logic is possible?" This may be a starting point for the development of theories of logic. By varying both the axioms of the third method and the systems of logic, various axiomatic systems may result.

In Journey in Being, transcendental logic is applied to the metaphysics of being; cosmology; the nature of existence, of categories, the problem of substance and of spirit; the nature of mind and matter and the classical mind-matter problem.

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