The Monist, Vol. 2, 1891-1892 : $b A quarterly magazineVarious
Philosophy
The Monist, Vol. 2, 1891-1892 : $b A quarterly magazine
Various
Philosophy -- Periodicals
The booklet closes with the following sentences: “The full and true
positivism is embodied in the Catholic Church. The divine revelation
which she represents is that which is truly real ... truly sure ... truly
precise ... truly organic ... truly useful. The deepest root, however,
and the most essential nature of all true positivism (this is vouched for
by reason as well as by revelation) is not the relative but the absolute.”
Here we conclude our review of the book. We have however to add a few
words which concern _The Monist_ as well as all the publications of The
Open Court Publishing Co. Hermann Gruber mentions in his book _The Open
Court_ and its editor together with the societies for ethical culture.
We have, ourselves, characterised our views as positivism and as monism,
but we stated at the same time that our positivism had nothing to do
with Comte or with any one of Comte’s disciples.[24] They have (with the
sole exception of Ribot and I should hesitate to call him a Comtean)
contributed little if anything to the formation of our views. The name
Positivism is a good and expressive word and we have adopted it because
taken in its proper meaning it represents the true principle of modern
philosophy. However we cannot agree with any of the fundamental tenets
either of Comte or of his most positivistic and most scientific disciple
Littré.[25] Comte as well as Littré are radical agnostics they repeat
again and again that “We can know nothing about first and final causes.
Positive philosophy denies nothing and maintains nothing.” According
to our view of the subject this attitude is rather negativism than
positivism. But it is not even negativism; it is worse, it is mere
scepticism leading to indifferentism. It sounds very philosophical to
speak of the inscrutability of first and final causes but the very
terms “first causes” and “final causes” are most nonsensical and
self-contradictory concepts. (See “Fundamental Problems,” pp. 88-90, and
101.) Comte and Littré imagine to have conquered metaphysics, but in fact
they are the worst kind of metaphysicians. They believe in the ghosts of
metaphysics as strongly as some mediæval minds believe in devils but are
afraid to wrestle with them, because, as they maintain these metaphysical
ghosts cannot be conquered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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