The will to doubt : $b An essay in philosophy for the general thinkerLloyd, Alfred H. (Alfred Henry)
Philosophy
The will to doubt : $b An essay in philosophy for the general thinker
Lloyd, Alfred H. (Alfred Henry)
Belief and doubt; Philosophy -- Introductions
In our recent dismission of the value of the essential defects of
experience, and particularly when we came to associate social character
with the habit of contradiction, a contrast of the personal and the
social was very plainly implied, and some special attention to this
contrast, I feel sure, will help us to comprehend more fully what was
said at the time, and will be of great advantage also to our general
purpose. It was [p.155] said that society was nothing alien, or
additional, to the nature of the individual, that a basis for society
lay in the very nature of experience, that so long as man was divided
against himself and the labour of life and reality was necessarily a
divided labour, the case both for society and for personal interest in
society was clear and conclusive; but this was not fully to define the
parts that are played by the individual person and the social group in
the development and maintenance of human life. Some, for example, would
fear more for the safety of the individual or the person than for that
of society; and just in recognition of their fear, we honest doubters,
who are now also at least potential believers, must look to our
defences.
Long ago Plato drew an analogy of the soul or self, of the human
individual, to society, and so, too, Aristotle, though not to society,
but much more broadly to all nature, and the one analogy or the other
has had a good deal of fascination, not to say intellectual inspiration,
for thinking men ever since. Yet, so far as I am aware, at least one of
the implications of the idea has never been fully stated or appraised,
and this is much to be wondered at, since there is involved a strong
case for both the personal and the social in the maintenance of
experience.[1]
Plato found reason, will, and sensuous nature in the individual and
analogously a thinking or law-making class, an official or military
class, and an industrial or [p.156] appetitive class in society; and
Aristotle, in very much the same way, found the parts of the individual
soul analogous to the vegetable, animal, and rational kingdoms of
nature, and either of these analogies is simple enough and reasonable
enough to be formally understood, if not at once wholly appreciated,
with its mere statement. Still, in order to be sure of appreciation, in
order especially to get the reflected light on the relation between
individual and society, we must look to the facts and conditions which
are presented very closely.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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