The Study of Philosophy: An Outline

By W. H. Chamberlin

"The Study of Philosophy: An Outline" by W. H. Chamberlin. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Good Press
• Release date: Dec 8, 2020
• ISBN: 4064066066949

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W. H. Chamberlin

The Study of Philosophy: An Outline

Published by Good Press, 2022

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EAN 4064066066949

Table of Contents

PREFACE

The Study of Philosophy

Section 1.

Section 2.

Section 3.

Section 4.

Section 5.

Section 6.

Section 7.

Section 8.

Section 9.

Section 10.

Section 11.

Section 12.

Section 13.

Section 14.

Section 15.

Section 16.

Section 17.

Section 18.

Section 19.

Section 20.

Section 21.

PREFACE

Table of Contents

———

The Study of Philosophy

Table of Contents

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Section 1.

Table of Contents

As long as an instrument fits into what we are doing, or works well, there is commonly no interest in examining it. So with living itself. Until our lives are confronted with difficulties, and run defectively, there is no need and no motive for reflecting upon life, or upon the conditions under which its satisfactory going-on depends. But when an interest in such reflection is awakened, especially when such reflection is concerned with the most general aspects and conditions of life, there is generated the study of philosophy, the study of life and its environment, of life as a part of the world-whole.

In approaching the study of the world-whole the parts of the world and the relationship of these parts to one another are more or less vaguely conceived; the world seems to be but an aggregate of the ordinary objects of perception, and the relations of these objects or parts to one another are as lacking in clearness as are the parts of a piano, an automobile, or of any other instrument to one who is approaching the study of one of them for the first time.

Clear ideas of one of these wholes or of any of its parts are gained only as we deal with them mentally or overtly and observe how they affect one another. In the degree in which these ideas or meanings are thus cleared up, especially as it is observed how things work under definite conditions imposed by those who are studying them, and as these ideas are so organized as to serve as a means for grouping them in effective relations to one another, that system of ideas becomes a science. Just so, as convenient parts of the world-whole are discovered and their meanings become understood and organized, there is developed the science of philosophy.

The sole motive for thus forming ideas and sciences is more satisfactory life through a better adjustment to or control of the various things we set about to study. The coming into clearness of any object whatever, the awareness of which enters into experience, is dependent upon our interests.

​And so the awareness of any object, when that awareness is considered apart from its conditioning interest is abstract. It is no more a reality independent of an interest, than is the flavor of an apple independent of an apple. The concreter reality is the interest, and the awareness of objects generated by the interest is a quality of the interest.

But the awareness of any object is not only dependent upon an interest. It is at the same time dependent upon a second reality, a reality which is the objective support of both the awareness and its conditioning interest. Thus, with reference to this still concreter reality, the awareness of objects is doubly abstract, depending both upon our subjective interests and upon an objective reality, a reality which supports both these subjective interests and the awareness of objects which depend upon them. With either the subjective interest or the objective support lacking, the awareness of any object would not exist; it is at one and the same time a quality or aspect of both.

Most of the sciences deal with objects without needing for their purposes to investigate either the subjective or the objective conditions of our awareness of objects. It is sufficient that the objects exist and that uniformities in their ways of appearing can be discovered. In describing objects, then, awareness or cognitive aspects of them are commonly emphasized and there is a strong tendency to regard them as the most fundamental, the concretest realities, realities upon which both interests and objective support are dependent qualities. The true order of dependence is thus-reversed. The physchological sciences consider carefully our interests, the subjective support of our awareness of objects, and do not commonly investigate the nature of the reality which supports our experience of objects.

Philosophy, the science of the world-whole, can, for its purpose of understanding our lives and their conditioning environment, or the concreter whole of which they are a part, ignore neither, it must be the concretest science of all; although one in persisting in this effort to view things concretely must constantly oppose strong customary tendencies, both in himself as he thinks and in others, to regard abstract or dependent aspects of life as the truly concrete because they are simple, easily reacted to, and, as a matter of historic development, came first to be understood and obvious.

In view of the fact that our interests are aspects of this concretest reality, aspects to which the awareness of objects is subordinate, and in view of the further fact that our interests are correlated with or confluent with the objective support of our experience of things to form this concretest reality, the suggestion becomes strong that a study of interests may be a happy ​approach, or a key, to the appreciation of the nature of the parts of the world-whole. We begin, therefore, our study of the world-whole, by a study of interests.

REFERENCES

Dewey, How We Think, ch. 9.

Colvin and Bagley, Human Behavior, chapters 1 and 13.

Section 2.

Table of Contents

The interests that constitute the lives of each one of us are realities or active processes which manifest themselves either in mind as ideas or overtly in acts. They may also be described as efforts through these ideas or acts to fit into or