[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
or less rigidly marked-off classes and groups -- in other words,
in obstruction to full and flexible social interaction and
intercourse. These social ruptures of continuity were seen to
have their intellectual formulation in various dualisms or
antitheses -- such as that of labor and leisure, practical and
intellectual activity, man and nature, individuality and
association, culture and vocation. In this discussion, we found
that these different issues have their counterparts in
formulations which have been made in classic philosophic systems;
and that they involve the chief problems of philosophy -- such as
mind (or spirit) and matter, body and mind, the mind and the
world, the individual and his relationships to others, etc.
Underlying these various separations we found the fundamental
assumption to be an isolation of mind from activity involving
physical conditions, bodily organs, material appliances, and
natural objects. Consequently, there was indicated a philosophy
which recognizes the origin, place, and function of mind in an
activity which controls the environment. Thus we have completed
the circuit and returned to the conceptions of the first portion
of this book: such as the biological continuity of human impulses
and instincts with natural energies; the dependence of the growth
of mind upon participation in conjoint activities having a common
purpose; the influence of the physical environment through the
uses made of it in the social medium; the necessity of
utilization of individual variations in desire and thinking for a
progressively developing society; the essential unity of method
and subject matter; the intrinsic continuity of ends and means;
the recognition of mind as thinking which perceives and tests the
meanings of behavior. These conceptions are consistent with the
philosophy which sees intelligence to be the purposive
reorganization, through action, of the material of experience;
and they are inconsistent with each of the dualistic philosophies
mentioned.
2. The Nature of Philosophy. Our further task is to extract and
make explicit the idea of philosophy implicit in these
considerations. We have already virtually described, though not
Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com
Democracy and Education
244
defined, philosophy in terms of the problems with which it deals:
and that thing nor even to the aggregate of known things, but to
the considerations which govern conduct.
Hence philosophy cannot be defined simply from the side of
subject matter. For this reason, the definition of such
conceptions as generality, totality, and ultimateness is most
readily reached from the side of the disposition toward the world
which they connote. In any literal and quantitative sense, these
terms do not apply to the subject matter of knowledge, for
completeness and finality are out of the question. The very
nature of experience as an ongoing, changing process forbids. In
a less rigid sense, they apply to science rather than to
philosophy. For obviously it is to mathematics, physics,
chemistry, biology, anthropology, history, etc. that we must go,
not to philosophy, to find out the facts of the world. It is for
the sciences to say what generalizations are tenable about the
world and what they specifically are. But when we ask what sort
of permanent disposition of action toward the world the
scientific disclosures exact of us we are raising a philosophic
question.
From this point of view, "totality" does not mean the hopeless
task of a quantitative summation. It means rather consistency of
mode of response in reference to the plurality of events which
occur. Consistency does not mean literal identity; for since the
same thing does not happen twice, an exact repetition of a
reaction involves some maladjustment. Totality means
continuity -- the carrying on of a former habit of action with
the readaptation necessary to keep it alive and growing. Instead
of signifying a ready-made complete scheme of action, it means
keeping the balance in a multitude of diverse actions, so that
each borrows and gives significance to every other. Any person
who is open-minded and sensitive to new perceptions, and who has
concentration and responsibility in connecting them has, in so
far, a philosophic disposition. One of the popular senses of
philosophy is calm and endurance in the face of difficulty and
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]