| INTRODUCTION OBJECT AND DIVISION OF PHILOSOPHY 1.Sens usual of the word philosophy In the ordinary language, the philosophical word is often employed to designate a man who supports with courage the pain and the adversity, and which can also act with moderation in prosperity: Aequam mememto rebus in arduis servare mentem not secus in profits (Horace, Odes II, 3). In this very practical direction, the philosopher is wise, and philosophy is other thing only WISDOM. Another point of view, a philosopher is a spirit curious, difficult, which realizes of its ideas, which does not believe slightly in the word of others, but refers itself some to its own reason, which in a word examines before judging. Thus heard, philosophy is the FREE EXAMINATION. One calls still philosophy, and it is consequence of direction preceding, spirit which thinks, which meditates, which reflects, which seeks the direction of the things and the human life. Philosophy is the REFLEXION. One as generally agrees as that which, in the various orders of knowledge, rises higher than the facts, conceives reports/ratios, links, class, sees top, which finally generalizes or goes up with the principles, is a philosophical spirit. Philosophy is the research of the GENERAL IDEES or the PRINCIPLES. By summarizing and gathering these various ideas, one will say: Philosophy is the wisdom based on principles acquired by the free reflexion. 2.La philosophy like science. Such will be the definition of philosophy, such as it arises from the popular use of the word; let us see now if the scientific and methodical analysis will lead us to a similar result. The popular use has especially report/ratio with the practice, and indicates a frame of the mind rather that a science itself. We have to now ask us what it is that the philosophy considered as a science. But initially, what a science? 3.Définition of science. Science has as an aim the investigation into the causes (To know, known as Aristote, it is to know by the cause.(Anal.post, II, X.)). It is thus knowto know it why things. Thus, the vulgar one knows that the thunder occurs when the weather is very hot and that there are thick clouds, and usually a strong rain. The scientist is that which knows why that takes place, and for example that the lightning is an electric spark produced by the meeting of two clouds in charge of contrary electricity. Science does not seek only it why things; it seeks also it how. Thus the vulgar one sees well that the bodies fall, but the physicist teaches us how it fall, for example, according to the law of the uniformly accelerated movement. How phenomena or things is what is called their law; why is what one calls their causes. Science taken generally is thus the RESEARCH OF the CAUSES AND the LAWS. Science in general being defined as we have just said it, various sciences are distinguished the ones from the others by their object. At once that one can announce an object distinct, likely to be studied and known, it is necessary to recognize the existence of a special science. 4.Méthode to determine the object of philosophy. To determine the object or the objects (because there can be several) philosophical science, our method will be to review the various objects of our knowledge, as well as universally recognized sciences which are occupied of these objects. That if, after having exhausted the enumeration of all these sciences, there remains still some object which was not named, this object could be regarded as a bonum vacans which will belong to which will want to seize some. The need for a science moreover will be shown, and it will not any more be a question but of knowing if this new science is not precisely philosophy itself. 5.Objets of various sciences. The alive bodies;corps and rough bodies. The first objects which are presented at us and on which attention of the men had to go, they are the bodies; and like there are two kinds of body, the rough or inorganic bodies, and the organized or alive bodies, there will be two kinds of sciences: the science of the alive beings or BIOLOGY, and the science of the nonalive bodies, which we will call PHYSICS. There are two kinds of beings which live, the plants and the animals; there will be thus two biological sciences, BOTANY and the ZOOLOGY. 6.Choses and phenomena. As for science, or with sciences of what does not live division is more delicate. We will say initially that in nature one can distinguish two points of view: or things themselves, or phenomena. Thus a stone is a thing, a metal is a thing; water the air are things, but the sound, the light, heat are only phenomena. So that there is its, light, heat, is needed that there are sound things, luminous, overheated. Thus the phenomena are not by themselves and suppose things. However they can be observed and studied independently of the things. The science of the general phenomena of nature is PHYSICS itself; the scientists who occupy themselves of these phenomena, their causes and their laws are called physicists. 7.Les stars. Ground. Minerals. Elements and made up. As for the study of the things, it is subdivided in its turn as it follows: If we raise the eyes above our heads, we see a multitude of luminous element of which the number and the movements astonish us; they are the stars: the science of these bodies is called ASTRONOMY. Among these stars, the only one that we know directly, it is the ground, and the science who corresponds to it is the GEOLOGIE. The various material objects which are on the surface of the ground or which forms the composition of it, are what one calls of minerals, and they are the object of the MINERALOGIE. Maintaining the experiment teaches us that these bodies change structure and properties, according to whether one associates some or that one separates the elements from them. The science which has as an aim the compositions and the decompositions of the bodies, which by the analysis goes down again of made up to their elements, and by the synthesis goes up these elements with the compounds, is called CHEMISTRY. 8.Objets mathematical. Measurable numbers and things. The preceding enumeration includes/understands all the kinds of objects significant, which fall under our experiment, and it seems that the circle of sciences is exhausted. It is lacking some much. Thanks to a certain faculty called abstraction, that we will study later, we can apply our spirit either only to real and concrete things (trees, stone, horse), but to qualities who, while being extracted from realities, do not correspond however to realities, and seem to be only designs of our spirit. We explain. When we have in front of the eyes several objects, for example several trees, several stones, we distinguish each one of these trees and each one of these stones, in particular, of their meeting or multitude, and we say: a tree, a stone, several trees, several stones. Up to now, nothing which exceeds seemingly the field of the directions, but if we want to know how much there are trees, how much there are stones, the directions are not enough more. One needs a certain number of operations, helped of signs; and the science which learns how to us to practise these operations and to include/understand these signs is the ARITHMETIQUE. One can thus define arithmetic the science of how much, or the science of the numbers: because the number is precisely what expresses how much the things. The number is an abstract quality which does not fall under the direction and which never separates from the things where it meets. The science of the numbers forms part of a group of sciences which one calls the MATHEMATIQUES, which very have as an aim the study of the measurable quantities. What quantity? It is, say to us, the mathematicians, all that is suitable for increase and reduction. Thus a time, a way, an amount of money, is quantities, because time, the way, the sum, can be more or less large. But it is not enough that a thing is more or less large to be the object of mathematics; it is necessary, moreover, that it is suitable for measurement. What be-that measurement? To measure, it is to compare a multitude of object with one of these objects taken as term of comparison, which one calls unit, and to determine how much time the unit is contained in the multitude; for example, to measure a field, it is to seek how much time it contains a certain unit called meter. All the times gifts which an object is such as one can take one of these parts like unit, and to say how much the whole contains these parts, such an object is measurable, and it can become the object of mathematics. This kind are: space or extent, object of the GEOMETRIE; the movement, object of the MECANIQUE. Such are, with the arithmetic one, two primarily mathematical sciences: because the algebra is only one arithmetic generalized; the integral calculus and differential is only one extension of the algebra, and the theory of probability is only one particular case. Annotations of Apj: (the division of the physical sciences is not very precise. Two paragraphs 6 and 7 would be to remake. I think that the algebra is arithmetic that one tried to generalize. The algebra is arithmetic of trade which uses the zero, which is one its principal characteristics. I think that there is another arithmetic without zero with an exponential model for sciences with for application the health or the body of the man. I also think that there is third arithmetic always exponential directed towards the spirit of the man thus towards God. 9.Le moral world. The mankind. All preceding sciences have as an aim the physical world, because the mathematical concepts themselves are drawn from the physical world or apply to it. But is the physical world all? There is not another order of facts and truths which one calls the moral world, and which deserves as much as the first, and perhaps, the study of the scientists? Among the beings which cover the surface of the ground, it is one which interests us particularly, since they is ourselves. This class of beings is what one calls the mankind, mankind, the man. Considered outside, the man presents himself at us as similar to the other beings which surround it; it is a body; it resembles the animals, saw, is born and dies, like them. When his body is opened, it is seen that it is organized same manner as the higher animals: it is a mammal, vertebrate. For this reason, it belongs, like object, with a science already known and mentioned above, the zoology. Up to now nothing again. But if the man, by his physical organization, fact part of the animal world, it is certain that it is distinguished from the other animals by essential characters: and besides, in the animal itself, there are qualities, aptitudes, which are not purely physical. These aptitude, which in the man is well differently developed, are what we will call the moral one. The man, being moral, can be considered from several different points of view: 1° While, in the animals, the individuals differ little the ones from the others, and carries out consequently a life almost entirely similar and uniform, in humanity, on the contrary, the individual having taken a great importance, it follows a great diversity in the life of each one, and like resultant of all these various actions, a great diversity of events. Then, the man being endowed with the considered memory and faculty to measure time, of the attribute of the word and the writing, it starts by telling orally, then to consign in writing all the events which interest it or which interest its family, her tribe, her nation, and finally humanity: from there a science, or rather a group of science which one calls HISTORICAL HISTORY or SCIENCES (history, archaeology, épigragie, numismatics, geography). 2° While the animal has only the inarticulate language or the cry, the man has the articulated language or the word. The word changes according to times and the places and gives rise to so that one calls the languages. From there a new group of sciences, or PHILOLOGICAL SCIENCES (philology, etymology, paleography, etc) 3° Enfin, while the animal, or saw isolated, or it lives in group, does not appear gifted faculty to reflect on the company in which it lives, the man lives in company; it forms States, cities, republics. It gives itself to itself laws. Institutions, laws, public and deprived richness, as many facts giving rise to a third group of sciences: SOCIAL SCIENCES AND POLICIES (policy, jurisprudence, political economy). 10.L' human spirit. Sciences which we have just announced, namely, sciences historical, philological, political, are what one calls sciences morals, but they are not yet philosophy itself. We ask now if there is not yet a point of view under which the human nature can be considered, and who is distinguished from the preceding points of view. We distinguished the moral one from the physique, but what does one have to call the moral one? One calls made moral of the human nature those which can never be reached directly by the directions and which are known only internally by that which tests them, by the thought, the feeling, the will. However preceding sciences study yet only the demonstrations external of the moral facts, but do not study them in themselves. The language, expression of the thought, are not however the thought. The historical events, effects of passions and the wills of the men, are however neither these passions, nor these wills. The human societies, manifestations of the instinct of sociability and bodies of justice, are however neither sociability, nor justice. Finally all the social facts, history, are the outside of the human spirit, they are not the human spirit. One calls human spirit the whole of intellectual faculties and morals of the man, such that they appear internally with each one of us as it exerts them. When I think, I know that I think; when I suffer, I know that I suffer; when I want, I know that I want; and no one other knows it only me, or by me; otherwise the lie would be impossible. This interior warning which accompanies each one of our interior acts (and that we will study later) is called the conscience or the intimate direction. The interior principle which S ' allot these interior acts, and which grammatically results in the pronoun of the first anybody, I or I, are called it Me, or the subject, or finally the heart. All that has report/ratio on the subject, i.e. with ego, i.e. with the interior principle which is aware of him even, is called subjective; reciprocally, all that is apart from ego is for him objective, is used to him as object. All sciences morals which study the man by the outside (language, facts historical or social) still place from the objective point of view. It thus remains to make the study of the man from the subjective point of view, i.e. the study of the heart itself. From there a science or a group of sciences which we will call PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCES. 11. First principles and first causes. It thus had already only this first object, namely, the human spirit, philosophy would have a reason to exist and to confuse with no other science; but this first object is not the only one which remains free; there is still a type of question which sciences themselves leave apart from their field, or which they cannot approach without leaving their clean limiting. We saw that each science is made up when it has a distinct and determined object. To establish particular sciences we are obliged to divide, to separate nature in compartments. Each science being thus placed from an exclusive and special point of view, the unit of the thing escapes to him; the sets are erased; the reports/ratios and the bonds are sacrificed. There is thus a legitimate need for the spirit which is not satisfied by special sciences and which requires satisfaction, namely: the need for synthesis. With which conditions this need for synthesis will be it satisfies? 1° Everyone knows that in any science the facts and the laws which constitute the positive part of science suppose or suggest a certain number of theoretical and general considerations which one usually calls the philosophy of this science; it is the connection of these considerations between them, it is the reduction of these principles of each science to more raised principles, it is that even which can constitute the object of a science superior. 2° When one reflects on these principles of sciences, one realizes that it imply certain numbers general concepts, fundamental, which are to some extent the gasoline even of the human spirit. They are common to all sciences and inherent with the human thought. They are involved in all our judgements, as they are also frays with any reality. They are, for example, the concepts of existence, substance, cause, force, action and reaction, law, goal, movement, to become, etc. Thus these principles, which one finds with the root of all sciences, are at the same time the principles of the human reason, and either that one considers one or the others, there is a science of first principles. 3° It is not all. Not only sciences study the laws or principles, but they study the causes. However each science studies only particular causes, and these causes themselves must have their causes. But can one rise of cause in question without never meeting some of last? If we seek the cause of all the things of the universe, catches separately, isn't it necessary to seek the cause of the entire universe? If thus there is a science of the first principles, there are of them also first causes: or rather it is the same one, because principles and causes differ only by abstraction. Thus science that we seek will be thus the science of what there is of more general in all the others, the science of the fundamental designs of the human spirit, science to be it as being, the science of the first principles and the first causes. It is this science which one agreed to call, since Aristote, the METAPHYSIQUE. 12.Double object of philosophy. The man and God. Unit of these two objects. It results from preceding research that there are at least two objects which remained apart from the framework of sciences themselves. These two objects are: 1° the human spirit, present at itself by the conscience; 2° the highest possible general information, that we called, with Aristote, first principles and first causes. One calls PHILOSOPHY science or sciences which are occupied of these two objects; and there will be consequently two kinds of philosophy: 1° the philosophy of the human spirit; 2° philosophy first. We up to now presented the object of methaphysic sciences like one makes Aristote and the scolatique one, in the most abstract form: (first principles and first causes), but doesn't this supreme object have a more concrete name and more alive, than mankind knows, respects and adores, namely God? Isn't God the principle of being it, to be it in oneself, to be as being it? Isn't this as a God that at the same time the first principles and the first causes are summarized? Also Aristote does not fear it to call the metaphysics of the name of THEOLOGIE. Undoubtedly, there are several parts and to some extent several degrees in metaphysics, but the point more culminating of this science, it is the science of God, called now théodicée. Thus, while the base of philosophy is the man, its term and its last word are God. How these two terms would not be plain in only one and even science? Because it is the only being which thinks of God (the man is distinguished from the animal, said Hegel, in what this one does not have of religion) In addition, the man is incomplete without God; it is by God that it is completed and that it is included/understood. As it is seen as from Socrate to Descartes, and Descartes until Kant and Hegel, the problem, for all the philosophical schools without exception, was always double; what the man? what God? According to these considerations, one will be able to simplify the double definition given higher and to bring back it to only one, while saying with Bossuet (that it is the knowledge of God and oneself), or the social science like introduction to the science of God. If we bring closer the preceding definition that which we higher drew from the vulgar concepts (voy.chp1), we will see that they are answered and been complementary one with the other, because (wisdom) does not have surer condition than (the knowledge of us even), and them (principles) which melt wisdom have them-even for last base (the knowledge of God). Lastly, (the free reflexion), which is the condition of all sciences is with stronger reason of the science of sciences, namely, philosophy. We have to ask us, which of these two parts (the social science and the science of God) must precede the other. Without exaggerating, as one did, the importance of this question, we however believe to be in conformity with the spirit of modern science while starting by most known raising us at least known. However, if not very known that us is the human spirit, it is it however more to us than the first principles and the first causes. It will be thus of the man that we will leave to raise us with God, and psychology will be for us the base of théodicée. 13.Subdivisions. It remains us to subdivide the great parts of the philosophy which we have just distinguished, namely, the philosophy of the human spirit and philosophy first. The philosophy of the human spirit is the science which treats natural laws. However, these laws are of two kinds: the ones are human spirit such as it is; , others the laws of the human spirit, such as it should be. , ones are empirical, i.e. express the results of the experiment; the others are ideal and express the goal towards which must tighten our faculties. There will be thus initially a science which will study our faculties in their real state and it is what one calls PSYCHOLOGY. There will be moreover several other sciences having their roots in this primitive science, but being distinguished some in what they study our faculties in an ideal state; for example, the study of the ideal laws of the understanding is called LOGIC; the study of the ideal laws of the will is called MORALS. An understanding ideal would be an infallible understanding; an ideal will would be an impeccable will. Logic is the science of the infallible understanding. Morals is the science of the impeccable will. The understanding and the will are not only faculties which have an ideal rule. It is the same for imagination. In fact, imagination can conceive all that she, as the understanding to think all that it wants likes, like wanting all that approved to him, but the understanding should not all think, nor the will all to want; in the same way, imagination should not all conceive. From there the third science which for object ideal laws of imagination: it is the ESTHETIQUE. With the result that the understanding, the will, imagination have rules which impose direction rather to them than such other, it is that they have a goal, an object which is apart from it and which exceeds them, and consequently their order. The goal of the understanding, it is truth; the goal of the will, it is the good; the goal of imagination it is the beautiful one. Truth, the good and the beautiful one are thus the three object of logic, morals and esthetics. This is why these three sciences, while being attached to the philosophy of the human spirit, since they study human faculties, however tend to cross the limits of this philosophy, because, studying these faculties from the ideal point of view, it bring back to their principle, and are thus the bond and to some extent the passage of psychology to metaphysics. According to the preceding considerations, we will divide the philosophy of the human spirit into four parts: psychology, logic, morals and esthetics; and on the basis of the same principle as higher, namely, than it is necessary to go from most known at least known, we will start with psychology, because the real state is more known and more easily recognizable for us than the ideal state; and it is only of the knowledge of reality that one can rise with the knowledge of the ideal. When with the second part of philosophy, or philosophy first, it was itself in the old school subdivided in several parts. Let us say only that as it in general treats principles and in an abstracted way, it is called metaphysics, and that as it treats to be it supreme and of the first cause, it is called théodicée. One will be used to us as introduction to the other. Hypothesis on time |