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PARTISAN REVIEW
1) The attack was regarded as justified. Philosophers withdrew
to limited tasks.
If
philosophy is at an end because the sciences have
taken over all its subject matter, there remains nevertheless the knowl–
edge of its history, first as a factor in the history of the sciences
themselves, then as a phenomenon in the history of thought, the his–
tory of the errors, the anticipated insights, the process of liberation
by which philosophy has made itself superfluous. Finally, the history
of philosophy must preserve the knowledge of the philosophical texts,
if only for their aesthetic interest. Although these texts do not make
any serious contribution to scientific truth, they are nevertheless
worth reading for the sake of their style and the intellectual attitude
they reflect.
Others paid tribute to the modern scientific trend by rejecting
all previous philosophy and striving to give philosophy an exact
scientific foundation. They seized upon questions which, they claimed,
were reserved for philosophy because they concerned all the sciences,
namely, logic, epistemology, phenomenology. In an effort to refurbish
its reputation, philosophy became a servile imitator, a handmaiden
to the sciences. It proceeded to establish in theory the validity of
scientific knowledge, which was not questioned anyhow. But
in
the
field of logic it developed a specialized science which, because of the
universality of its purpose, i.e., to define the form of all true think–
ing, to provide a
mathesis universalis,
seemed capable of replacing
all previous philosophy. Today many thinkers regard symbolic logic
as the whole of philosophy.
This first reaction seems today to have given rise to the view
that philosophy is a science among other sciences, a discipline among
other disciplines. And like the others, it is carried on by specialists, it
has its narrow circle of experts, its congresses, and its learned periodic–
als.
2) In opposition to this infatuation with science, there has
been a second reaction. Philosophy attempted to save itself from des–
truction by dropping its claim to scientific knowledge. Philosophy–
according to this view-is not a science at all. It is based on feeling
and intuition, on imagination and genius. It is conceptual magic,
not knowledge. It is
elan vital
or resolute acceptance of death. In–
deed, some went further and said: it does not behoove philosophy
to concern itself with science, since it is aware that all scientific truth
