The positive outcome of philosophyDietzgen, Joseph
Philosophy
The positive outcome of philosophy
Dietzgen, Joseph
Knowledge, Theory of; Logic; Philosophy
Before anything to the point can be said about the logical laws, it is
necessary to say above all how it stands with the relation of the whole
to its parts, of the universe to its subdivisions. The old theological
question of God and his creatures, the old metaphysical question of the
unity and the multiplicity, of truth and its phenomena, reason and
consequence, etc., in one word, the question of metaphysical categories
must be solved and settled before the definition of the minor factors of
understanding, the questions of formal logic, can be attempted.
What is a "thing?" A clergyman would answer: Only God is something,
everything else is nothing! And we say: Only the universe is something,
and everything in it consists of vacillating, changing, precarious,
varicolored, fluid, variable phenomena or relativities.
In our times, up to which the theologians have speculated so much and
contributed so little to understanding, one can hardly touch on the God
concept without annoying the reader. Yet it is very essential for a
thorough understanding of the human mind to point out that the God
concept and the universe concept are analogous concepts. Not in vain
have the first minds of modern philosophy, such as Cartesius, Spinoza,
Leibniz, occupied themselves so closely with the God concept. They
invented the socalled ontological proof of the existence of God. This
proof if applied to the universe, testifies to its divinity. A
metaphysical cloud pusher as well as the physical cosmos are
fundamentally concepts of the most perfect being. It makes little
difference whether we say that the concept of the universe, or of the
cosmos, or of the most perfect being is innate in man. If this concept
were not existing, it would lack the main thing required for its
perfection. Hence the most perfect being must exist. And it does. It is
the universe, and everything belongs to its existence. Nothing is
excluded from it, least of all understanding. The latter is, therefore,
not only possible, but a fact, which is proven by the very concept of
the most perfect being.
This ought to be sufficient to help us over the doubts of the critics,
especially over Kantian criticism, or rather dualism. Kant did not care
to accept the dogma of the possibility of understanding without
examination; he wished to investigate first. He then discovered that we
may understand correctly, provided we remain with our understanding on
the field of common experience; in other words, in the physical
universe, and refrain from digressing into the metaphysical heaven. But
he did not understand that the metaphysical heaven against which he
warns us would be an obsolete standpoint in our days.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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