An introduction to philosophy / by J.L. Stocks.

  • Stocks, J. L. (John Leofric), 1882-1937.
Date:
1929
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: An introduction to philosophy / by J.L. Stocks. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/84 (page 9)
    cular science with which it dealt, and that, so far as these chapters are concerned, the reader would prob- ably be better off if, instead of reading them, he pro- cured and read a first-rate textbook of each science. So far, then, the answer to our question is that such a volume will be in character scientific, and in value negligible. There remains the prologue and the epilogue. If the volume is to contain anything dis- tinctive and original, we shall find it here. But that is really to say that these are not merely what they pretend to be, mere prospect and retrospect, but some- thing more. If, however, important new questions are raised when the world of science is viewed as a whole, clearly it is these questions that philosophy should dis- cuss, and the formal resume of the results of the sciences, which is at best second-hand repetition, can be dispensed with altogether. This simple illustration is intended to bring out the point that a synthesis of the sciences needs no philo- sophy to bring it about. It already exists, by the efforts of the scientists themselves, in the sense that to make it is within the reach of any person who has the capacity to understand and the energy to assimilate the problems and theories of the various sciences of his time. It is not denied that such an omnivorous scientific appetite might be of value to the world. It is quite possible that its owner might be able to point the way to fruitful lines of scientific advance, which the more specialized inquirers would not have dis- covered or not have discovered so soon. The point is only that it does not cease to be scientific by be- coming omnivorous; and that the benefits, if any, of its exercise will be scientific and not philosophical. The philosophical problem, if it is independent of the scientific problem, must at least lie in certain further questions, which arise when the scientific world is regarded as a whole. If, again, one asks the question of fact: What have the natural sciences contributed in recent times to the