The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, Vol. 8: January-December, 1911 (Classic Reprint)
Book Details
Author(s)Frederick J. E. Woodbridge
PublisherForgotten Books
ISBN / ASIN1330266404
ISBN-139781330266403
AvailabilityUsually ships in 1 to 4 weeks
Sales Rank99,999,999
MarketplaceUnited States 🇺🇸
Description
Excerpt from The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, Vol. 8: January-December, 1911
It is of curious interest that, regarded in its whole course, philosophy has been optimistic. It has pronounced truth good. There have been, there still are, pessimists: Proclus and Schopenhauer and all Asia. But the world is yet a livable world, and the philosophic phrasing of this livableness is that its truth is a good truth. The race has lived and thriven, it has achieved a certain mastery over nature, harnessing her powers to the fulfillment of men's needs; nay, in the very opulence of its rulership contriving new needs for her ministration. That philosophy were less than human which should fail to nod its Jovian approval of such efficient living!
And yet it is of curious interest... not that philosophy should have made appetite the measure of truth, for without this she could not have been philosophy; nor yet that she should have pronounced the world livable and life good, for otherwise she would have countered biological fact... but it is of curious interest that the credo in a life dominantly good should have expanded into a credo in a life absolutely good, that the recognition that the controlling truths of nature are, humanly speaking, beneficent, should have crystallized in the dogma of the identity of the true and the good.
Of course the main stress, the "drive," of experience is all in this direction: the truths that interest and hold us are the ductile, the malleable truths of our world; life is action, and the thought reaction of efficient living naturally brings into emphasis complaisant truths. Nevertheless, it would seem that the consciousness, inevitable to every human being, of the stubbornness and inductility of the moiety of experience ought to preclude any generalization of all particular truths into one truth, homogeneously beneficent.
It is of curious interest that, regarded in its whole course, philosophy has been optimistic. It has pronounced truth good. There have been, there still are, pessimists: Proclus and Schopenhauer and all Asia. But the world is yet a livable world, and the philosophic phrasing of this livableness is that its truth is a good truth. The race has lived and thriven, it has achieved a certain mastery over nature, harnessing her powers to the fulfillment of men's needs; nay, in the very opulence of its rulership contriving new needs for her ministration. That philosophy were less than human which should fail to nod its Jovian approval of such efficient living!
And yet it is of curious interest... not that philosophy should have made appetite the measure of truth, for without this she could not have been philosophy; nor yet that she should have pronounced the world livable and life good, for otherwise she would have countered biological fact... but it is of curious interest that the credo in a life dominantly good should have expanded into a credo in a life absolutely good, that the recognition that the controlling truths of nature are, humanly speaking, beneficent, should have crystallized in the dogma of the identity of the true and the good.
Of course the main stress, the "drive," of experience is all in this direction: the truths that interest and hold us are the ductile, the malleable truths of our world; life is action, and the thought reaction of efficient living naturally brings into emphasis complaisant truths. Nevertheless, it would seem that the consciousness, inevitable to every human being, of the stubbornness and inductility of the moiety of experience ought to preclude any generalization of all particular truths into one truth, homogeneously beneficent.
