Philosophy : its scope and relations an introductory course of lectures / by Henry Sidgwick.
- Henry Sidgwick
- Date:
- 1902
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Philosophy : its scope and relations an introductory course of lectures / by Henry Sidgwick. Source: Wellcome Collection.
28/280 page 4
![recognised in ordinary discourse, which when made clear and explicit will furnish the required definition. So far as usage is vague and varying, it would be futile to aim at complete uniformity with it: but in my view there is a distinction between ‘ Philosophy ’ and the subjects otherwise named which I seek to distinguish from it precisely—Science, Psychology, Epistemology, Logic, etc.—which is more or less recognised in the ordinary thought ^ of educated persons and may be made clear by careful reflection. § 2. I will first endeavour to distinguish Philo- sophy from Science. ^ Science is certainly a kind of 1 I say in ordinary thought; I should add ‘ of the present age.’ The word has come down to us from the Greeks, and it is a historical inquiry of some interest to trace the changes of meaning through which the word has passed during more than two thousand years. But it would be confusing, and would render our task more difficult, to mix this historical inquiry with the search for a definition appropriate to our present thought. ® And here I must notice a special source of divergence—and sometimes of confusion—in definitions in our subject, which arises from the influence of the German language, through translations, on English thought. Thus in Kiilpe’s definition of Philosophy [Of. 0. Kiilpe: IiUrodAiction to Philosophy (Eng. trans.), 1897, ch. 1. This was one of the text-books recommended to his class by Professor Sidgwick. ] ‘ Science ’ is used in a somewhat different meaning from that which I decide to give to the word. This is partly because the term which the translator renders Science is ‘ Wissen- schafl ’: and ‘ Wissenschafi ’ has in common German usage, at least to the best of my knowledge and judgment, a somewhat wider meaning than that which ‘Science’ has in English usage. For instance, I do not consider History a Science, so far as it is merely concerned with presenting particular events in chronological order : and I think this is clearly in accordance with English usage : but I believe that in German, History even in this limited view of it would be regarded as a Wissenschaft. Hence I am not surprised that Kiilpe decides without hesitation that Philosophy is a ‘ Wissenschaft ’; but I do not hold that to be a sufficient reason for regarding it as a ‘ Science ’ according to English usage. When we speak of ‘ the Sciences, ’ we mean what is sometimes more definitely expressed as ‘ the special sciences ’—a group of organised bodies of](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28064161_0028.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
