Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2022
Many centuries ago, at the very beginning of the systematic development of philosophy, Plato declared that the thinker's domain comprises “the wholeness of things;” and indeed, the earlier thinkers took all knowledge for their province and did not hesitate to discuss problems now referred to art, psychology, economics, mathematics, or physics. Since then the meaning of philosophy has appreciably changed, however, and the intellectual descendants of the great founder of the Academy no longer claim the monopoly of all fields of study. For there appeared in the meantime a mighty competitor—or should we say a partner?—in the pursuit of truth, namely, science.
1 The Function of Reason, 49.
2 See particularly: C. D. Broad, Scientific Thought; R. G. Collingwood, An Essay on Philosophic Method; and C. J. Ducasse, Philosophy as a Science.
3 A Defense of Philosophy, 55.
4 Published at the same time in the International Journal of Ethics.
5 Philosophy as a Science, viii.
6 “The Philosophy of Development,” Contemporary British Philosophy, I.
7 “Renaissance and Method in Philosophy,” Studies in the History of Ideas, Columbia Univ. Press, p. 38.
8 “The Responsibility of Philosophical Inquiry,” Journal of Philosophy for July 3, 1941.
9 Scientific Thought, 18.
10 C. J. Ducasse, Philosophy as a Science, 173.
11 Creative Intelligence, 65.
12 Op. cit., xix.
13 “The Role of Philosophy in Social Crisis,” Ethics for July, 1941.