Abstract: THE HISTORIC ROLE OF PHILOSOPHY in the development of civilization is said to lie in providing a wisdom of cosmic proportions to which men may turn for inspiration concerning the nature of truth, beauty, and goodness. That conception of philosophy has been accepted widely in our past culture, notably in the Greek, the medieval European, and the nineteenth century German periods, with the effect that philosophers themselves have come to believe in it. In contemporary society, in spite of a declining personal prestige, and a waning social influence, most philosophers still believe it. The pressure of popular scorn for philosophical wisdom has had only the result of forcing the' philosopher to work harder at the very things which have alienated him from the living community of political, social, and economic beings who make -up our world. So intent has he become upon explaining the universe' to himself, that the greatest human crisis in the history of civilization now finds him absorbed in the pursuit of a rare kind of truth available only to his professional colleagues. During the past two thousand years, the social prestige of the philosopher has been radically narrowed. His magnificent reputation as the possessor of universal knowledge has now been transformed to that of the owner of a rather dubious set of abstract principles. From the time when the prestige of the philosopher was at its height, in the acceptance by medieval society of the philosophical and scientific omnipotence of Aristotle, there has been a gradual diminution in public faith in the value of philosophers. The first heretical body to secede were the astronomers. The need of navigators, warriors, and others for accurate information concerning nature, hastened the formation of the sciences of astronomy, physics, optics, geography, and allied subjects. In quick succession, the philosopher lost control of the fields of mathematics, medicine, botany, biology, chemistry, physiology, economics, political theory, until finally, the realms of introspective philosophy and practical ethics were converted into the sciences of psychology and sociology. With this final heresy, philosophy lost its last field of empirical inquiry.
Publication Year: 1944
Publication Date: 1944-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 1
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