In Defense of Philosophy: Classical Wisdom Stands Up to Modern Challenges by Josef Pieper

Author:Josef Pieper [Pieper, Josef]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Spiritual & Religion
ISBN: 9781681492551
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Published: 1992-09-01T05:00:00+00:00

VII

Karl Jaspers, in an academic address in 1960, made the statement that philosophy “has become an embarrassment for everybody.”1 He did not mean philosophy’s natural outsider status in relation to a world where usefulness and practicality reign supreme, but rather the situation of philosophy within the realm of the contemporary university. To eliminate this embarrassment, it seems to me, you would have to eliminate at the same time philosophy itself. We are faced here, put in provisional terms, with an equally natural incommensurability, namely, that between scientific and philsophical thinking. What else should we expect, other than an ever more pronounced incommensurability, the more exclusively our universities submit to the standards of the exact sciences? The tendency toward such an exclusive attitude, evident to everybody, has of course its good reasons; it is all but inevitable. Philosophy, in contrast, proceeds in a way that is indeed, by scientific standards, offensive, even impossible—provided we mean by “philosophy” the same that Plato, Aristotle, and the great philosophical tradition up to Karl Jaspers meant.

Nevertheless, scientific research and philosophy in themselves have never been one another’s real enemies. A closer look shows it is not they that are the two sides in the dispute going on, true, for quite some time and for everybody to see. The vocal participants in this controversy are rather those who declare the exact sciences to be the one and only and obligatory standard and norm for all serious consideration of reality and truth. In this, however, they advance a thesis obviously not of the specifically scientific domain but pertaining to the theory of science, and therefore a philosophical thesis. In fact, this is the widespread explicit claim, for example, by the proponents of a “scientific philosophy”. And on the other side? The one so attacked does not, of course, deny the sovereignty of the scientific domain. Yet he insists that there are other forms of cognitive quest, certainly correlated to science in various ways, even dependent on it, and nonetheless distinct and equally indispensable—for example: philosophy.

Such controversies are usually not the results of irrelevant or irresponsible whims. We should rather expect them to be connected with certain changes in the total historical structure of human existence. This necessitates from time to time a revision and redefinition of the respective positions. In no way does it mean that such conflicts would basically be nothing more than misunderstandings solvable through better explanations. Definitely not! On the contrary, some disagreements will stand out all the more sharply after more detailed clarification. It is, of course, impossible to specify here the principles of scientific research and, on the other hand, spell out in detail what it means to philosophize. Still, to draw up some kind of inventory concerning the main grievances shall nonetheless be attempted here, at least a brief identification of the “differences” (in a double sense) that quite regularly and predictably trigger the polemic.

First and foremost, we have to recall the image of the unending trail that I have employed, quite tentatively, to characterize the internal situation of the philosopher.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.