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extend access to Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes
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MUST PHILOSOPHERS DISAGREE ?
By Dr. F. C. S. SCHILLER, C. A. MACE and Prof. J. L. STOCKS.
I.--By F. C. S. SCHILLER.
I.
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MUTST PHILOSOPHERS DISAGREE ? 119
II.
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120 I. c. . sCHILLn.
III.
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MUST PHILOSOPHERS DISAGREE ? 121
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122 F. c. s. SCHIL.R .
* Op. Rhetoric, I. 2.
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MUST PHILOSOPHERS DISAGREE ? 123
IV.
The abstraction from personality in the sciences has
meaning and function. It is intended to eliminate, or
to slur over, the annoying discrepancies between the
individual ways of taking the world, which are such ob
calculating and predicting personal reactions, and it
not indeed perfectly, but sufficiently to warrant the abs
It succeeds sufficiently to permit us all to speak of " the
world, in which all persons share, and to conceal its r
from nearly all. Yet in ultimate analysis "the " w
artefact, a construction, and fiction. It is constr
omitting from the infinitely numerous worlds of persona
ence the infinitely numerous items which are merely
and cannot be shared. They simply are not counte
not count. After ejecting them, the sciences can
happily to explore the remainder of the real, which is
" objective," and to lay down " laws " which hold " un
All of which is very convenient, comfortable, profitable a
matically intelligible.
But it is abstraction, none the less, and it is not th
story. After the sciences have done their utmost and
what the truth is according to their several lights, the
with a big unsolved problem, the problem of the who
problem they can offer no solution, because their wh
cedure has been to dissect the apparently presente
selecting such parts as seem to them relevant to t
purpose and interests of each science. So the final outcom
scientific attitude towards the real is, not a cosmos, bu
a congeries of sciences that have selected different a
the Whole, studied different "facts," and departed fr
given in different directions. The cosmic jig-saw puzzl
cut up. Humpty Dumpty has been effectively dismem
and just because it is a special science, no science can p
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124 P. c. S. SCHILLER.
V.
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MUST PHILOSOPHERS DISAGREE ? 125
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126 F. C. 8. SCHILLER.
VI.
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MUST PHILOSOPHERS DISAGREE ? 127
VII.
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128 7. C. S. scLLER,.
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MUST PHILOSOPHERS DISAGREE ? 129
VIII.
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130 F. C. S. SCHILLER.
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II.-By C. A. MACE.
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132 C. A. MACE.
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MUST PHILOSOPHERS DISAGREE ? 133
II.
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134 c. A. MACE.
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MUST PHILOSOPHERS DISAGREE ? 135
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136 C. A. MACE.
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MUST PHILOSOPHERS DISAGREE ? 137
agreement.
But why does Dr. Schiller describe the unity of this history
"as tolerant and elastic "? If you set out to study all the
philosophies that exist you must at least admit the existence
of the philosophies you study. If this be tolerance, tolerance is
an easy virtue to possess. Botany must be a very tolerant and
elastic science since it admits the existence of so many different
plants. But a botanist may hold that some of the plants are
poisonous. I see no reason why a historian of philosophy should
not hold that some philosophies are false.
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III.-By J. L. STOCKS.
A.
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MUST PHILOSOPHERS DISAGREE ? 139
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140 J. L. STOCKS
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MUST PHILOSOPHERS DISAGREE ? 141
B.
I have already said that I agree with Dr. Schiller that the
essential peculiarity of the philosophic task and method depends
upon the fact that it is an attempt to undo the twofold abstrac-
tion on which science rests. Philosophy, unlike science, has to
do with the whole and with the individual. The further explora-
tion of the implications of this statement should give us the
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142 J. L. STOCKS.
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MUST PHILOSOPHERS DISAGREE ? 143
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144 J. L. STOCKS.
C.
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MUST PHILOSOPHERS DISAGREE . 145
added the alternative word " understanding." On the strictest
view the term "knowledge " may not even be applied to the
general body of science. It is confined to the abstract and
hypothetical systems, of which mathematics is the type, and is
withdrawn as the concrete and categorical enters. What word
is used is unimportant; but to me it seems clear, first, that science,
whether rightly called knowledge or not, will always fail to
reach the individual, not in the sense that so great a perfection
is not in practice to be looked for, but in the sense that no
conceivable advance would bring the individual within its
reach; and, secondly, that the intellectual effort, to which both
the sciences and the abstract disciplines pre-eminently called
knowledge belong, must remain incomplete and unsatisfied
until this citadel of individuality is captured. No whole can
satisfy which is exhibited as a mere system of categories or
class of classes; it must be an individual, with individual
constituents.
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146 J. L. STOCKS.
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MUST PHILOSOPHERS DISAGREE ? 147
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148 J. L. STOCKS.
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MUST PHILOSOPHERS DISAGREE ? 149
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