The positive outcome of philosophyDietzgen, Joseph
Philosophy
The positive outcome of philosophy
Dietzgen, Joseph
Knowledge, Theory of; Logic; Philosophy
This charge may seem unjust, because the learned gentlemen reserved a
corner for the true, the good, and the beautiful in their metaphysical
department. But there is something peculiar about this. The great Kant
has asked the plain question: "Is metaphysics practicable as a science?"
Answer: No! The transcendental truth, etc., sought by metaphysics, and
named God, freedom, immortality in Christian language, cannot be found
by any reason. But being a child of his time, the great philosopher
makes a small concession to the transcendental.
He teaches: Although transcendental truth cannot be located
scientifically, still the religious faith in its existence is wholesome.
We, in our time, think more soberly about this theory of salvation and
accept the elimination of all transcendentalism from science. While the
spokesmen of the "true people" would like to hide their exalted truth,
freedom, and immortality behind the curtains of temples, we throw the
full daylight of logic on the absolute truth, goodness, and beauty of
the material world.
Logic as the science of correct thought cannot be restricted to any one
object, it cannot exclude any object, whether terrestrial or heavenly,
from its sphere. The great lights of present day learning do not wish to
subordinate the intellect as the object of the logical department, and
absolute truth as the object of the metaphysical department, to one
another, but to co-ordinate them side by side.
But two co-ordinated things which are not subordinated to a third higher
thing lack logic, and the brain which is satisfied by such a condition
suffers from disorder. Logical truth must inevitably be a part of
absolute truth, and it is our duty to remove absolute truth from the
field of metaphysics, of transcendentalism, and to transfer it to the
sober world which forms an inseparable unit with the human mind.
So much for the proletarian duty to continue the research after the
true, the good, and the beautiful which was the object of the
philosophers before and after Socrates. But remember that I am referring
only to the truly good, beautiful, etc., which is contained in the
universal truth of all true specifications. The question of the
ethically good, the esthetically beautiful and the absolutely perfect is
as necessarily contained in the question of the universal truth as red,
blue, and green in the rainbow, of course only in an abstract sense.
Our logic which has for its object the truth of the universe, is the
science of the understanding of the universe, a science of universal
understanding or conception of the world. It teaches that the
interrelation of all things is truth and life, is the genuine, right,
good, and beautiful. All the sublime moving the heart of man, all the
sweet stirring his breast, is the universal nature or the universe. But
the vexing question still remains: What about the negative, the ugly,
the evil, what about error, pretense, standstill, disease, death, and
the devil?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account