Science and the Parts of Philosophy

For the philosophers, science was a much broader term than we today think of it as. Today, the notion of science is generally limited to the sciences whose main goal is the finding of rules that explain physical (or mathematical) reality. Chief among these is physics, whose goal is to explain all of physical reality using mathematical principles.

These are what the philosophers would call natural sciences, and their goal is, like all sciences, to get to “knowledge that is certain, general, and rigorous… with truths validated for all cases, all times, and all places, and which are united by their causes and principles” (TdF). Through this definition, we see how the philosophers considered philosophy to be a science, and in fact a greater science than the natural sciences, since while the natural sciences are concerned only with “the determinism of natural phenomena … philosophy has its object in discovering the most universal causes, which is to say the first causes of everything.” (TdF) We see that, while the natural sciences merely describe physical phenomena, philosophy, at its core, is interested in the deepest questions of reality, “including immaterial phenomena and that which is not accessible except by reason”. (TdF)

Like any science, philosophy has a method. Since philosophy concerns itself with the whole of reality, one of the sources of philosophical knowledge is sense experience. This is the most basic way that we can come to know reality, and in fact is the foundation for all further reasoning. Thus, Jolivet declares that philosophy is in the first place an “experimental method.” (TdF) Secondly, since “philosophy, due to its end, is essentially metaphysical, which is to say it aims beyond sense experience and towards first cause, it needs to have need of reason.” (TdF) Finally, in the Catholic Church, philosophy distinguishes itself from theology in that it does not make use of revealed truths, but only of “natural reason”. (TdF)

The Parts of Philosophy

Jolivet divides philosophy into two parts: “That which can be considered in itself and that which can be considered in relation to others.” (TdF) The first is what is called speculative philosophy, which is where the center of philosophy really is. Paraphrasing Jolivet, it concerns itself with principally with metaphysics, which is to say the fundamental structure of being (Ontology), the study of God (Theodicy), and the study of the possibility of attaining truth (Epistemology). It also concerns itself with natural philosophy, which is to say the “material world itself [Cosmology] and man [Psychology]” (TdF). In this scheme, logic is prior to philosophy, and, strictly speaking, not part of it. Its aim is to “determine the conditions of internally coherent thought (formal logic) or … to define the methods for every discipline by which their objects may be studied (material logic)” (TdF)

The second part of philosophy (“that which can be considered in relation to others”) is practical philosophy. Jolivet states that this philosophy teaches us how to attain “the absolute good” (TdF). There are two divisions to this philosophy: philosophy of art and moral philosophy. The former concerns itself with producing things, and in particular beautiful things. The latter concerns itself with doing things, which is to say, the choice of actions which are excellent. The former requires no virtue. Indeed, it is possible to be very good at making things but otherwise a very bad person, as the stereotype of the artistic scumbag tells us.