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Single Idea 19588

[filed under theme 1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / c. Philosophy as generalisation ]

Full Idea

He attains the maximum of a philosopher who combines all philosophies into a single philosophy

Gist of Idea

The highest aim of philosophy is to combine all philosophies into a unity

Source

Novalis (Logological Fragments II [1798], 31)

Book Ref

Novalis: 'Philosophical Writings', ed/tr. Stoljar,M.M. [SUNY 1997], p.77

A Reaction

I have found the epigraph for my big book! Recently a few narrowly analytical philosophers have attempted big books about everything (Sider, Heil, Chalmers), and they get a huge round of applause from me.

The 7 ideas with the same theme [philosophy aims at broad generalisations]:

11242 Wisdom is knowledge of principles and causes [Aristotle]
19588 The highest aim of philosophy is to combine all philosophies into a unity [Novalis]
19598 Philosophy relies on our whole system of learning, and can thus never be complete [Novalis]
17992 The main aim of philosophy is to describe the whole Universe. [Moore,GE]
21829 Philosophy aims to understand how things (broadly understood) hang together (broadly understood) [Sellars]
3879 Philosophy aims to provide a theory of everything [Scruton]
14255 We understand things through their dependency relations [Fine,K]