Story of Philosophy

<p>There is a pleasure in philosophy and a lure even in the mirages of metaphysics which</p><p>every student feels until the coarse necessities of physical existence drag him from the</p><p>heights of thought into the mart of economic strife and gain. Most of us have known some</p><p>golden days in the June of life when philosophy was in fact what Plato calls it that dear</p><p>delight; when the love of a modestly elusive Truth seemed more glorious incomparably </p><p>than the lust for the ways of the flesh and the dross of the world. And there is always some</p><p>wistful remnant in us of that early wooing of wisdom. So much of our lives is meaningless a</p><p>self-cancelling vacillation and futility; we strive with the chaos about us and within; but we</p><p>would believe all the while that there is something vital and significant in us; could we but</p><p>decipher our own souls. We want to understand; we are like Mitya in <em>The Brothers</em></p><p><em>Karamazov</em> - one of those who don't want millions but an answer to their questions; we</p><p>want to seize the value and perspective of passing things and so to pull ourselves up out of</p><p>the maelstrom of daily circumstance. We want to know that the little things are little and the</p><p>big things big before it is too late; we want to see things now as they will seem forever -</p><p>in the light of eternity. We want to learn to laugh in the face of the inevitable to smile</p><p>even at the looming of death. We want to be whole to coordinate our energies by criticizing</p><p>and harmonizing our desires; for coordinated energy is the last word in ethics and politics </p><p>and perhaps in logic and metaphysics too. Truth will not make us rich but it will make us</p><p>free.</p><p>This book is not a complete history of Philosophy. It is an attempt to humanize knowledge</p><p>by centering the story of speculative thought around certain dominant personalities. Certain</p><p>lesser figures have been omitted in order that those selected might have the space required to</p><p>make them live. Hence the inadequate treatment of the half-legendary pre-Socratics the</p><p>Stoics and Epicureans the Scholastics and the epistemologists. The author believes that</p><p>epistemology has kidnapped modern philosophy and well-nigh ruined it; he hopes for the</p><p>time when the study of the knowledge-process will be recognized as the business of the</p><p>science of psychology and when philosophy will again be understood as the synthetic</p><p>interpretation of all experience rather than the analytic description of the mode and process</p><p>of experience itself. Analysis belongs to science and gives us knowledge; philosophy must</p><p>provide a synthesis for wisdom.</p>