Methodical Realism by Etienne Gilson

Author:Etienne Gilson [Gilson, Etienne]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Spiritual & Religion
ISBN: 9781586173043
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Published: 2011-10-12T04:00:00+00:00

IV

The Realist Method

I have tried to show first of all why and in what sense it is possible to speak of a methodical realism, in order to define an attitude which I believe to be in agreement with the Aristotelian tradition and also to be philosophically sound. I am not here concerned with the question whether we ought to accept Aristotle’s psychology in all its structural and technical details, but with something quite different. The problem I am discussing is that of our basic philosophical attitude.

Now it seems to me that today, on just this point, we are in a state of not having made up our minds, which may be convenient, but which, if we genuinely want to undertake philosophy, we absolutely must get away from. The truth is that realism is not properly presented. Most of our contemporaries think that, at bottom, being a philosopher and adopting an idealist method are one and the same thing. When idealism is aware of its nature and of the principles which determine it, such an attitude is consistent. What is inconsistent and dangerous is that ill-defined idealism, adopted as a matter of course, which surrounds us today. When someone calls himself an idealist, what does he really mean by it?

Since the problem under discussion is the elementary one of the existence of the outside world, a pure idealism would in the first place be one that reduced reality to a percipere or a percipi. This point of view, which is fairly close to Berkeley’s, would reduce reality to the “apprehended” and to our apprehension of the “apprehended”. The universe, being composed entirely of thoughts and images, would contain neither matter nor substances endowed with an existence of their own independent of the act that knows them. In this sense, the world would not only be contemporaneous with thought, but would be confounded with it and have no other existence than that of thought. It would be easy enough to find statements by present-day philosophers, and even certain scientists, which presuppose belief in a doctrine of this kind. “Thought is nothing but a flash of lightning in a long night, but the lightning flash is everything”, and “the scientist’s thought creates the scientific fact”, may be brilliant as dicta and their effect is plain enough. But what are they supposed to mean? Anyone who wants thought to be everything must be ready to agree that outside thought there is nothing; also that, as a consequence, there was nothing before thought, and that, if thought were to disappear, there would be nothing after it. In a word, when the problem is presented like this, one must face the fact that being, because limited to the content of knowledge, is in itself inseparable from it.

If one goes to this extreme, though one may be wrong, at least one cannot be accused of inconsistency. Unfortunately, however, those who make use of these maxims do not really accept what they imply. They would be most reluctant

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