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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2009
The relation of philosophy to science, a problem of paramount importance for the future of philosophy, is reconsidered in this paper. Usually science has been accepted as the indubitable basis and philosophy has been made so dependent on it that it has become chiefly an investigation into the foundations, the results or the language of science. It has been wrongly assumed that science contains all possible material knowledge and that philosophy has but to analyse the language and grammar of science. Even where science has been criticized, as in the French Critique of Science, it has been accepted in its present form and restricted merely to the analysis of matter whereas the access to life has been claimed for philosophy (Boutroux, Bergson).
page 243 note 1 Journal des Savants, Paris 1848, pp. 129, 432Google Scholar.
page 243 note 2 Roger Bacon, sa vie, ses ouvrages, ses doctrines, Paris 1861Google Scholar.
page 243 note 3 R. Bacon, The Philosophy of Science in the Middle Ages, Manchester 1876Google Scholar.
page 243 note 4 Little, A. G., “Roger Bacon,” 1928 (Proceedings of the British Academy, XIV, p. 11)Google Scholar.
page 243 note 5 L'expérience physique chez R. B., Paris 1924Google Scholar; L'expérience mystique de l'illumination intérieure chez R. B., Paris 1924Google Scholar; La synthèse doctrinale de R. B., Paris 1924Google Scholar (cf. Hoffmann, , “L'expérience chez R. B.,” Rev. Néo-schol., 27, p. 170 (1925))Google Scholar.
page 244 note 1 “Si enim haberem potestatem super libros Aristotelis ego facerem omnes cremari, quia non est nisi temporis amissio studere in illis, et causa erroris et multiplicatio ignorantiae, ultra id quod valeat explicari” (Compendium stud. phil., ed. Brewer, , p. 469Google Scholar).
page 244 note 2 Cf. E. Charles, l.c., pp. 97 ff.
page 244 note 3 Op. maj.; cf. Op. tert., cap. 22; Comp. philos., cap. 2.
page 244 note 4 Op. tert., ch. 4.
page 244 note 5 “Vivificatio sapientiae, quae mortua jam a multis temporibus jacuit, me valde instigabat” (Op. tert., p. 17).
page 244 note 6 Op. maj. I, ch. 14.
page 244 note 7 L.c., I, 33.
page 244 note 8 “Nec pars potest veraciter cognosci, nisi in suo toto cum aliis” (Op. tert., p. 18).
page 244 note 9 “Enumeravi jam linguas et scientias quae ignorantur a vulgo studentium, et quae faciunt sciri omnes alias, et sine quibus nihil potest veraciter cognosci” (Op. tert., p. 56).
page 245 note 1 Bodleian Digby MS. Nr. 76; quoted by Bridges, , The Life and Work of R. B., 1914, p. 82Google Scholar.
page 245 note 2 “Sed modo reducam omnia ad quasdam radices certas, scilicet sex” (Op. tert., ed. Brewer, , p. 32)Google Scholar.
page 245 note 3 Op. maj., ed. Bridges, , I, p. 97Google Scholar.
page 245 note 4 Op. tert., ch. 1, ed. Brewer, , p. 11Google Scholar.
page 245 note 5 “Quod per auctoritates probatum est experientia cuiuslibet certius dijudicatur” (Op. maj., I, ch. 3).
page 246 note 1 “Nam impossible est res huius mundi sciri, nisi sciatur mathematica” (Op. maj., I, p. 109).
page 246 note 2 Op. tert., ch. 11, p. 37.
page 246 note 3 Comp. Philos., ch. 1; cf. E. Charles, l.c., p. 111.
page 246 note 4 Comm. natural., pp. 13–14; Op. maj., I, ch. 9, p. 19; Comm. math. Charles, l.c., p. 363.
page 246 note 5 Op. maj., Bridges, , II, p. 226Google Scholar.
page 247 note 1 Comm. natural., ed. Steele, R., p. 9Google Scholar.
page 247 note 2 Comm. math., Charles, l.c., p. 362.
page 247 note 3 “Quapropter manifestum est quod una debet scientia esse naturalis philosophiae, quae omnia tractet communia naturalibus, et haec erit prima inter scientias naturales” (Comm. math., ed. Charles, , p. 371)Google Scholar.
page 247 note 4 Comm. natural., p. 2.
page 247 note 5 L.c., p. 8.
page 247 note 6 L.c., p. 10.
page 247 note 7 Op. maj., II, p. 167.
page 248 note 1 Op. maj., II, p. 171.
page 248 note 2 Op. maj., II, pp. 172 ff., 215.
page 248 note 3 For the legend of Roger Bacon, the magician, cf. Adams, W. H. Davenport, Witch, Warlock and Magician, London 1889, pp. 27 ffGoogle Scholar.
page 248 note 4 Op. tert., ch. 5.
page 248 note 5 Op. maj., IV., ch. 2; I, p. 102; cf. Op. tert., ch. 28.
page 248 note 6 Op. maj., I, pp. 106, 107.
page 248 note 7 Op. maj., II, pp. 1 ff.
page 249 note 1 De Augm., V, 2, ed. Spedding, , I, p. 622Google Scholar.
page 250 note 1 Spedding, VIII, p. 108.
page 251 note 1 Levi, Adolfo: Francesco Bacone considerato in relazione con le filosofie della Natura del Rinascimento e col razionalismo Cartesiano (Pavia, 1925, p. 151)Google Scholar.
page 251 note 2 Spedding, III, p. 228.
page 253 note 1 Spedding, III, pp. 727 ff. The date is inferred from an astronomical statement contained in it.
page 255 note 1 I have pleasure in noting that I am in complete agreement with Taylor, A. E., Francis Bacon (Brit. Ac. Lect., 11. 12 1926)Google Scholar, and with Levi, Adolfo's Il pensiero di Francesco Bacone (Torino, 1925)Google Scholar, who both point out that Bacon must be judged as the author, not of the Novum Organum, but of the Great Instauration, in which the theory of induction is but one part among others, not as the mere logician, but as the man who had “taken all knowledge for his province.” (Taylor, p. 8). This assumption formed already the basis of Spedding's edition. The reader will easily discover how much I differ from these authors in their further conclusions. A. E. Taylor wants to rediscover the external physical order itself as a fitting object of philosophical examination (p. 7). My central idea is the idea of the globus intellectualis.
page 257 note 1 Cf. for the implications and difficulties of this famous polemic the various references in Schilpp, P. A., The Philosophy of A. N. Whitehead, 1941Google Scholar.
page 258 note 1 Constantin von Monakov, the famous brain anatomist, died writing an essay on the problem of values. W. Koehler's book. The Place of Value in a World of Facts, is in this connection of importance. I agree with his problem but have no room here for discussing his solution.
page 259 note 1 Therefore Aristotle is able to call the universals the πoıóν regarding the individual being (Cat., ch. 5, p. 3 b 16), and he defines πoıóτης as ἠ τ⋯ςoύσίας διαφoρα (Met., 1020 b 14).
page 259 note 2 For Goethe, , cf. my paper “La phenoménologie de la nature chez Goethe,” Rev. Philos., 1935Google Scholar, and in general the other papers quoted in next note.
page 260 note 1 These questions are treated in greater length and in their application to a basic Science of Life (Lebensgrundwissenschaft) in the following papers:
1. “Vivo sum. Grundsätzliche Bemerkungen über Bedeutung und Targweite der Lebensphilosophie,” Neue Jahrb. f. Wiss. u. Jugendb. 1933Google Scholar.
2. “Philosophische Anthropologie. Die Lebensphilosophie u.d. Problem einer Lebensgrundwissenschaft,” Amersfoortsche Stemmen., 1933Google Scholar.
3. “Instauratio Mentis,” Revue Philosophique, 1935Google Scholar.
4. “Instauratio Scientiarum,” Actes du Congres Intern, de Phil. Scient., Paris 1935, vol. 8, p. 77Google Scholar.
5. Odysseus oder die Zukunft der Philosophie, Stockholm, 1939.
