Humanistic Studies of the University of Kansas, Vol. 1Mitchell, Arthur
Philosophy
Humanistic Studies of the University of Kansas, Vol. 1
Mitchell, Arthur
Humanities
If art, science and religion correspond to the ancient triad feeling
(intuition), thought (intellect) and will, it would seem either
that philosophy must be consciousness employed in one or more of
these modes, or else that a fourth mode of consciousness, coordinate
with these, must correspond to philosophy. Such a mode has not been
discovered. Philosophy must therefore be one or two or all three of the
above things. Can analysis of that generalization which was derived
above from the more specific definitions produce a logical principle
capable of determining the genuine philosophic method among the three
modes of consciousness, feeling, thought and will? Yes, such analysis
of the _supremacy_ which is a feature common to all three conceptions
of philosophy proves unequivocally that philosophy must be a function
of intellect, and cannot be a function either of will or of intuition.
This would not be the case, needless to say, if “supremacy” were here
a eulogism. Eulogistically, either of the three modes of consciousness
has equal claim to supremacy. That mode of consciousness to which
reality is most interesting is supreme, in the eulogistic sense, and
this depends on the philosopher’s personal constitution. To the man
of dominating intuition, the relations and teleology of things may
be incidental characters of them; but, by comparison with reality’s
qualitative aspect, those other aspects are relatively extrinisic and
accidental. In whatever sense it may not be true, in the eulogistic
sense it is true that such a man’s supreme experience is intuitional
rather than intellectual or ethical. Bergson’s psychological life seems
to be of such a type. But, for the man of ethical, and for the man of
intellectual prepossession, supreme experience cannot be intuitional,
in this sense of supreme. Yet, if an intuitional bent be regarded
by anyone as a hopeful qualification for effective philosophizing,
no intuitionist denies to the man in whom reason or will, instead,
is paramount, the possibility, by proper effort, of achieving the
genuinely philosophic--that is to say, intuitional--activity. And when
such a man does, in spite of difficulty, achieve it, it has the same
supremacy, as philosophy, that it has for the intuitionist, for whom
it is, more fortunately, _also_ supremely congenial and “worth while”.
It is not this latter supremacy, therefore, but the other, which
distinguishes philosophy, on the intuitionist conception; and that
other supremacy has a meaning which is thus proved to be independent of
relation to any constitutional prepossession or aptness. If philosophy
is intuitional, this is not because intuition is any man’s most
characteristic faculty.
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