Definition and introduction to Philosophy
A presentation of philosophy as an attempt at synthesis, inquiry, and discussion of the foundations of reality — situating the essay within its theoretical frame.
Definition of Philosophy
The word «philosophy», and the word from which it itself derives, as well as its equivalents in the various languages, have had, according to periods, authors and contexts, senses ranging from «complete wisdom, simultaneously theoretical and practical» to «inquiry». Broadly in continuity with these meanings, we conceive of philosophy today as at once an attempt at synthesis of the results obtained by the demonstrative sciences, an inquiry into those domains of knowledge that those same sciences do not — or do not yet — cover, and a discussion of the foundations of reality, as well as of the thought which envisages it, with regard to knowledges, things observed, fabrications, actions and intentions. It states the present knowledge of the foundations of all disciplines, and welcomes debate concerning them. If the beautiful is that which is taken as a model, one must ask how a demonstration or a geometric figure said to be “beautiful” provides the model of geometric activity, and this matter is open to debate. Other examples will easily be found to give substance to the definition of the discipline in question proposed here. The philosopher must have obtained, in the course of his studies or through his associations, the equipment of basic knowledges already acquired; equally, he must be informed of the rival theses concerning them, and finally must participate, at least subjectively, in the discussion of these matters, by way of some meditation. For example, geometry constructs a triangle with three vertices which are points, and philosophy will ask whether points exist in nature, or whether they are imaginings devised by the human being in order to understand nature. Physicists, chemists and biologists carry out experiments to bring out relations of cause to effect between phenomena, and philosophers examine whether there can be a fact without a cause. Technical practice succeeds almost unfailingly in its productions, and philosophy would like to know whether truth is what succeeds — and when. The linguist studies one or several languages, but in addition, the philosopher asks why in French, when one wishes to designate a large watercourse, one may say according to the case “fleuve” or “rivière”, whereas in English one says only “river”. In short, a statement is philosophical when it touches upon the principles of general knowledge or those of some particular knowledge, or again upon the propositions bearing on the supposed elements of the universe, the aspects of which are described by one knowledge or another. The proposition, first made public by Prout, according to which all the bodies of the world are made of the same things as hydrogen is a philosophical idea because it touches upon the foundations of the notion of body and upon the bases of that of universe, even if a chemist or a physicist may more readily see its interest than a specialist of another branch of knowledge. Among the great philosophical questions, let us insist on certain ones which are likely to lead each reader towards those situated at the principle of the essay here presented, starting from generalities concerning everything we possess in the way of fabrications, actions, intentions and knowledges: 1°) "How and why does our culture, historically locatable, lead our subjectivity sometimes towards facts, sometimes towards reverie?“ 2°) ”Can subjectivity be anything other than partial objectivity?" Whatever we do or think, reality is everywhere. When rails leave a factory, it is certain that there has been a human elaboration, but the iron was taken from the ground. When we look at the sun, today, we no longer see it as a heavenly body revolving around the earth. Collective thought has changed, so that individually we no longer perceive, immediately, the object in the same way as most of our distant ancestors. But who will deny the existence of heavenly bodies? Once that has been granted, let us observe that in French we see the sun rather as masculine: “le soleil”. In German, it is seen rather as feminine: “die Sonne”. One question to be asked, then, is the following: "in addition to the elements of understanding that come from science, distinguishing us from people of certain periods and from a great many other societies, are there also different portions of reverie, accepted as general representations in various cultures but ignored or set aside in others, that account for the contrast between our conception of the sun and that of many collective thoughts, prior to our own, or distinct from it today?"
Philosophy and the interpretation of texts
Now let us turn still more towards texts. When we interpret a text, the problem is to know whether the text really says what we understand in it. Thus comes to the fore the difficulty concerning the plausibility of any interpretation we give of a work: "what is the meaning of this work, such as the author delivered it on the day of its publication?" We risk taking the meaning supplied by a very imprudent interpreter for the real meaning of origin. It will be remarked that this question is particular, with respect to the perspective given above, because there are two thinking subjects here, the author and the interpreter, whereas for the sun there was only the object and a single thinking subject: the interpreter. But one can assimilate the author and the text as a single object, so as to find oneself again in the position of examining the object in relation to the interpreter. We have at the outset to treat the following question: "what is the plausibility that the author really wanted to say what we understand in his text?" This is the matter of the beginning of our essay.