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The Relations of Philosophy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

Extract

PHILOSOPHY, like some people, has many relations; and, as in the case of people with large family connections, it is possible to learn a good deal more about the nature of philosophy if we consider its relations with other members of the family to which it belongs. In this family are included, along with philosophy itself, two extremely important human interests, science and religion, all of which have a common concern in the fundamental problems of human experience, and attempt in various ways to satisfy man's need of adjusting himself to the universe which lies about him. Of these three related interests, Religion may be thought of as one of the parents of

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1938

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References

1 Brightman, , Introduction to Philosophy, p. 10.Google Scholar

1 The quotations are from Brightman's, Introduction to Philosophy, p. 7.Google Scholar

1 See his article in Contemporary British Philosophy, First Series (The Macmillan Company, 1924).

1 Psychology, Briefer Course, p. 461.

2 By religion, as the term is here used, is to be understood that human activity in which man feels himself to be in personal contact with a personal Deity. This is not intended as a comprehensive definition applicable to anything that anyone might call religion, but a statement of how the term as used in this article is to be understood.

1 It is hard to say whether we should call Lucretius a “philosophical poet” or a “poet philosopher.” The present writer would rather prefer to say the latter—that, apart from some of the earliest philosophers, who also wrote metrically, Lucretius is the one example in history of a philosopher of the rank who presented his ideas in masterly verse.

2 At least this is true of the main body of the works of Aristotle which have survived. We are told, however, that he did write other works of real literary quality.

3 I do not, of course, mean for a moment to deny that Professor Whitehead's writings often do possess real literary charm, when their author is not taking his duties as a philosopher too seriously.