History of Modern Philosophy: From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present TimeFalckenberg, Richard
Philosophy
History of Modern Philosophy: From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time
Falckenberg, Richard
Philosophy, Modern -- History
If it is thus indubitable that the views of the world held in earlier times
deserve to live on in the memory of man, and to live as something better
than mere reminders of the past--the history of philosophy is not a cabinet
of antiquities, but a museum of typical products of the mind--the value
and interest of the historical study of the past in relation to the exact
scientific side of philosophical inquiry is not less evident. In every
science it is useful to trace the origin and growth of problems and
theories, and doubly so in philosophy. With her it is by no means the
universal rule that progress shows itself by the result; the statement of
the question is often more important than the answer. The problem is more
sharply defined in a given direction; or it becomes more comprehensive,
is analyzed and refined; or if now it threatens to break up into subtle
details, some genius appears to simplify it and force our thoughts back
to the fundamental question. This advance in problems, which happily is
everywhere manifested by unmistakable signs, is, in the case of many of the
questions which irresistibly force themselves upon the human heart, the
only certain gain from centuries of endeavor. The labor here is of more
value than the result.
In treating the history of philosophy, two extremes must be avoided,
lawless individualism and abstract logical formalism. The history
of philosophy is neither a disconnected succession of arbitrary
individual opinions and clever guesses, nor a mechanically developed series
of typical standpoints and problems, which imply one another in just the
form and order historically assumed. The former supposition does violence
to the regularity of philosophical development, the latter to its vitality.
In the one case, the connection is conceived too loosely, in the other, too
rigidly and simply. One view underestimates the power of the logical Idea,
the other overestimates it. It is not easy to support the principle that
chance rules the destiny of philosophy, but it is more difficult to avoid
the opposite conviction of the one-sidedness of formalistic construction,
and to define the nature and limits of philosophical necessity. The
development of philosophy is, perhaps, one chief aim of the world-process,
but it is certainly not the only one; it is a part of the universal aim,
and it is not surprising that the instruments of its realization do not
work exclusively in its behalf, that their activity brings about results,
which seem unessential for philosophical ends or obstacles in their way.
Philosophical ideas do not think themselves, but are thought by living
spirits, which are something other and better than mere thought
machines--by spirits who live these thoughts, who fill them with personal
warmth and passionately defend them. There is often reason, no doubt, for
the complaint that the personality which has undertaken to develop some
great idea is inadequate to the task, that it carries its subjective
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