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PARTISAN REVIEW
man's quest for the limit at which cognition runs aground, not seem–
ingly and temporarily, but genuinely and definitively, not with a sense
of loss and despair, but with a sense of genuine internal evidence. Only
definitive knowledge can make definitive non-knowledge possible; it
alone can achieve the authentic failure which opens up a vista, not
merely upon the discoverable existent, but upon being itself.
In accomplishing the great task of dispelling all magical con–
ceptions, modern science enters upon the path that leads to the in–
tuition of the true depth, the authentic mystery, which becomes
present only through the most resolute knowledge in the consumma–
tion of non-knowledge.
Consequently philosophy turns against those who despise the
sciences, against the sham prophets who deprecate scientific inquiry,
who mistake the errors of science for science itself, and who would
even hold science, "modern science," responsible for the evils and
the inhumanitr of our era.
Rejecting superstitious belief in science as well as contempt of
science, philosophy grants its unconditional recognition to modern
science. In its eyes science is a marvelous thing, which can be relied
upon more than anything else, the most significant achievement of
man in his history, an achievement that is the source of great dangers,
but of even greater opportunities, and that from now on must be re–
garded as a prerequisite of all human dignity. Without science, the
philosopher knows, his own pursuits eventuate in nothing.
These pursuits can continue to be called scientific, because
philosophy proceeds methodically and because it is conscious of its
methods. But these methods differ from those of science in that they
have no object of inquiry. Any specific object is the object of a
particular science. Were I to say that the object of philosophy is the
whole, the world, being,-philosophical critique would answer that
such terms do not denote genuine objects. The methods of philo–
sophy are methods of transcending the object. To philosophize is to
transcend. But since our thinking is inseparable from objects, the
history of philosophy is an account of how the progress of human
thought has succeeded in transcending the objects of philosophy.
These objects, the great creations of philosophy, function as road–
signs, indicating the direction of philosophical transcending. Thus
there is no substitute for the profound discourse of the metaphysician,
