Preliminary Remarks: Modern Philosophy
The character of modern philosophy from Descartes onward: its break with tradition, its search for a new foundation of knowledge, and the split between Rationalism and Empiricism.
Modern philosophy (from Descartes, mid-17th century, to the present) is defined by the self-conscious break with the scholastic tradition and the search for a new and more certain foundation for knowledge — a foundation the individual thinking mind rather than the common tradition of reason and faith. Descartes' programme of universal methodic doubt and reconstruction from the cogito sets the agenda: the solitary intellect, stripped of all inherited beliefs, rebuilds knowledge from scratch. The organising dialectic of 17th- and 18th-century philosophy is the split between Rationalism (certainty through pure reason — Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz) and Empiricism (certainty through sense-experience — Locke, Berkeley, Hume). Kant attempts to synthesise both programmes through his critical philosophy but at the cost of excluding metaphysics and theology from the domain of genuine knowledge. The subsequent history of philosophy is in large part the working out of the consequences of this exclusion.
MODERN PHILOSOPHY (17 Century to the Present Day) PRELIMINARY REMARKS The anti-Scholastic movement, which originated in the 13 century and increased in power and scope during the three following centuries, destroyed the prominence and influence of Scholasticism but did not replace it by any complete and comprehensive system of philosophy. Matters philosophical were in a formless ferment. In the 17 century, however, systematized anti-Scholastic philosophies were formulated by René Descartes in France and Holland, and by Francis Bacon in England. Following the lead of these noted philosophers, thinkers of the 17, 18, 19, and 20 centuries have evolved numberless systems of nonScholastic and anti-Scholastic philosophy, all more or less unstable and ephemeral. Our own day sees continuous changes in the character and principles of the predominating anti-Scholastic systems. Negatively to characterize modern philosophy we may say, generally speaking, that it rejects the Scholastic doctrines of knowledge, Universals, matter and form, the substantial union of body and spiritual soul in man, and many other cardinal tenets of Scholasticism. Modern philosophy, impatient of anything resembling authority, holds itself strictly apart from connection with Revelation, and refuses to accept the services of revealed truth as its light and guide. Not all modern phi- 275 losophers are non-Christian, but most are; and it is fair to characterize modern philosophy generally as un-Christian, if not anti-Christian. Positively considered, modern philosophy is a welter of disagreeing and contradicting systems. Yet these systems have a common note in the fact that they are mainly concerned with the critical question, the question of the origin, character and validity of human knowledge. In solving this and minor questions, modern philosophers are markedly subjective in two senses : ( i ) they show cleverness in formulating plausibilities that pass for philosophy without justifying that character as interpretations of the objective universe; and (2) they repose knowledge upon the basis of the knowing subject, rather than upon that of real objects known or to be known. Naturally enough, in view of the subjectivistic character of the modern philosophic spirit, nearly all modern systems weaken the power and valor of man’s cognitive faculties, as well as the objectivity of knowledge. Scholasticism, submerged as it was at the beginning of the Modern Period, was never extinct. It lost its prestige in the 15 and 16 centuries, and it did not begin to regain its place of recognized prominence until the late 19 century. In our own day its place and power are assured; and the Neo-Scholastic Movement, inaugurated by Cardinal Mercier at the Institute of Louvain in 1880, promises to restore Scholasticism to its former influence. The present Book treats of Modern Philosophy in three Chapters, as follows. Chapter I. Philosophy of the Seventeenth Century. Chapter II. Philosophy of the Eighteenth Century. Chapter III. Philosophy of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.
PHILOSOPHY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY The Criteriological or Critical Question— the question of the character and value of human knowledge—engaged the minds of 17 century philosophers. Some of these admit an essential distinction between sense-knowledge (sensation) and intellectual knowledge (intellection’), and some, at least implicitly, deny it. Those who admit such a distinction fall into exaggerated spiritualism or intellectualism, denying that ideas are abstracted by the intellect from sense data, and asserting some supersensible origin of ideas. Those who deny the essential distinction of sense and intellect, make intellect and sense alike perceive objects in singular or individual concreteness (Sensism or Empiricism). Both Intellectualists and Sensists are subjectivistic in their treatment of knowledge, the former holding that the intellect of the thinking subject gives valid knowledge, the latter asserting the validity of the sense of the knowing subject. Because of its subjectivism, the 17 century philosophy is always near to skepticism, and the age inevitably developed some varieties of this destructive philosophy. Finally, Scholasticism, diminishing steadily in prominence and influence, had some few defenders of note in the 17 century. The present Chapter, therefore, treats of its subject-matter in the following articles : Article I. Seventeenth Century Sensism or Empiricism; Article 2. Seventeenth Century Intellectualism; Article 3. Seventeenth Century Skepticism; Article 4. Seventeenth Century Scholasticism. »77 Article i. Seventeenth Century Sensism or Empiricism
a) Francis Bacon; b) Thomas Hobbes; c) John Locke. Lord Bacon inaugurated Empiricist philosophy in England in the 17 century. After him, others made sense, or empirical knowledge, the basis of all philosophy. After flourishing in England throughout the 17 century, Empiricism spread through Europe, and especially through France, in the 18 century.
a) Fr ancis Bacon (1561-1626).
Life: Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam, Viscount of St. Albans, was born in London, and was educated at Cambridge. He spent two years in Paris as companion of the English Ambassador there. Returning to England upon the death of his father, he took up the practice of law. But his native flair for speculation made him devote much of his time to philosophy and theology, and he studied history and letters as well. Made Lord Chancellor under James I in 1618, he was charged with dishonesty in office, and was dismissed and heavily fined.
Works: Bacón’s great work is his Instauratio Magna (Great Restoration), which consists of two parts: (1) On the Dignity and Development of the Sciences (De dignitate et augmentis scientiarum), and (2) The New Organ of Sciences (Novum organum scientiarum), which treats (a) of the character and importance of science, and (b) of scientific method.
Doctrine: Bacon wished to remodel the whole structure of science and philosophy. To this end he employed the inductive method, i. e., observation and experiment. Deduction he regards as a method wholly inept, and the source of endless confusion in science and of interminable conflicts among philosophers. Having fixed upon induction as the one suitable scientific instrument, Bacon revises the division (“subordination”) of