PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE
881
which speaks to us from the centuries; to assimilate it from its source
in the history of philosophy is not only to know something that once
was but to make it come to life.
The mass of sham philosophical knowledge taught in the schools
originates in the hypostatization of entities that have served for a
time as the signposts of philosophy, but are always being transcended
by it. Such hypostatized entities are nothing but the
capita mortua,
the ossuaries of the great metaphysical systems. To imagine that they
confer knowledge is a philosophical perversion. In philosophizing we
must not fall under the spell of the object that we use as a means of
transcendence. We must remain masters of our thoughts and not be
subjugated by them.
Yet in this intellectual transcendence, which is proper to philo–
sophy and which is analogous to scientific forms, philosophy is less
than science. For it does not gain any tangible results, nor any in–
tellectually binding insight. There
is
no overlooking the simple fact
that while scientific cognition is identical throughout the world,
philosophy, despite its claim to universality, is not actually universal
in any shape or form. This fact is the outward characteristic of the
peculiar nature of philosophical truth. Although scientific truth
is
universally valid, it remains relative to method and assumptions;
philosophical truth is absolute for him who conquers it in historical
actuality, but its statements are not universally valid. Scientific truth
is one and the same for all,-philosophical truth wears multiple his–
torical cloaks; each of these is the manifestation of a unique reality,
each has its justification, but they are not identically transmissible.
The one philosophy
is
the
philosophia perennis
around which
all
philosophies revolve, which no one possesses, in which every gen–
uine philosopher shares, and which nevertheless can never achieve
the form of an intellectual edifice valid for all and exclusively true.
Thus philosophy is not only less, but also more than science,
namely, as the source of a truth that is inaccessible to scientifically
binding knowledge.
It
is
this philosophy that is meant in such defini–
tions as: To philosophize
is
to learn how to die, or to rise to godhead–
or to know being
qua
being. The meaning of such definitions is:
philosophical thought is inward action; it appeals to freedom; it is a
summons to transcendence. Or the same thing can be formulated
differently: Philosophy
is
the act of becoming conscious of genuine
