PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE
883
essary stage? One might wish for a philosophy that would encompass
and assimilate the whole tradition, that would be equal to the intel–
lectual situation of our time, that would express the contents common
to all of us, and this both in sublime intellectual constructions and in
simple propositions capable of finding resonance in every man. Today
we have no such philosophy.
Old university seals dating from the fifteenth century reveal
figures wrought in gold, which represent Christ distributing their
tasks to the faculties. Even where such seals are still in use they no
longer express the modern reality; yet they still bear witness to the
task of unifying the whole.
Today neither theology nor philosophy create a whole. Does
the university still have a common spirit?
As
regards its organiza–
tion, it still seems to constitute an ever-changing plan without sym–
metry or logic, never definitive, constantly in process of enlargement,
a plan in which everything that achieves scientific status has its
place. The most disparate elements meet. Not related by a knowledge
of the whole, everyone is nevertheless compelled to see in this meeting
something previously unknown, everyone learns to come into con–
tact with highly unfamiliar things. Hence arises the intellectual life,
the striving for greater expanse and freedom of thought. Thus a
common spirit is no longer found in a faith binding to all, but only
in critical inquiry as such, in the recognition of the logically or em–
pirically unascertainable, in the resolute refusal to perpetrate the
sacrificium intellectus,
in open-mindedness, in unlimited questioning,
in integrity.
This spirit is the product of the last few centuries. Will the
university content itself with this spirit forever? For philosophy, this
situation seems to offer extraordinary possibilities. But it would be
absurd to draw up a program for a task that can be carried out only
by an intellectual world operating with a true sense of community, not
by an individual.
So long as the philosopher retains his integrity, he is modestly
aware of the limits of his knowledge. This must not be confused
with another kind of modesty needed today, that of the
teacher
of
philosophy. The best philosophers today are not perhaps to be found
among those charged explicitly with the teaching of philosophy. For
the philosophy
in
the sciences, which preserves us from dissipating
