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Single Idea 19228

[filed under theme 1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / a. Philosophy as worldly ]

Full Idea

Philosophy differs from the special sciences in not confining itself to the reality of existence, but also to the reality of potential being.

Gist of Idea

Sciences concern existence, but philosophy also concerns potential existence

Source

Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], I)

Book Ref

Peirce,Charles Sanders: 'Reasoning and the Logic of Things', ed/tr. Ketner,K.L. [Harvard 1992], p.115

A Reaction

One might reply that sciences also concern potential being, if their output is universal generalisations (such as 'laws'). I take disposition and powers to be central to existence, which are hence of interest to sciences.

Related Idea

Idea 16127 Metaphysics tells us what there could be, rather than what there is [Lowe]

The 32 ideas with the same theme [philosophy aims to understand the (human) world]:

21360 Unobservant thinkers tend to dogmatise using insufficient facts [Aristotle]
2845 Free and great-souled men do not keep asking "what is the use of it?" [Aristotle]
1767 Everyone should study philosophy until they see all people in the same light [Crates of Thebes, by Diog. Laertius]
22758 Philosophy aims at a happy life, through argument and discussion [Epicurus]
20867 True philosophising is not memorising ideas, but living by them [Stoic school, by Stobaeus]
13293 What philosophy offers humanity is guidance [Seneca]
13317 Philosophy aims at happiness [Seneca]
20876 Philosophy investigates the causes of disagreements, and seeks a standard for settling them [Epictetus]
23269 Philosophy must start from clearly observed facts [Galen]
22101 Philosophy aims to know the truth about the way things are [Aquinas]
22026 Philosophy is homesickness - the urge to be at home everywhere [Novalis]
21970 Philosophy attains its goal if one person feels perfect accord between their system and experience [Fichte]
19442 I don't study Plato for his own sake; the primary aim is always understanding [Feuerbach]
5300 Philosophers have interpreted the world, but the point is to change it [Marx]
23027 Ideals and metaphysics are practical, not imaginative or speculative [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
19228 Sciences concern existence, but philosophy also concerns potential existence [Peirce]
24142 What matters is how humans can be developed [Nietzsche]
2930 The main aim of philosophy must be to determine the order of rank among values [Nietzsche]
14885 The first aim of a philosopher is a life, not some works [Nietzsche]
14887 You should only develop a philosophy if you are willing to live by it [Nietzsche]
23025 Philosophers should be more inductive, and test results by their conclusions, not their self-evidence [Russell]
18005 Philosophy aims to become more disciplined about categories [Ryle]
21845 Philosophy aims to become the official language, supporting orthodoxy and the state [Deleuze]
2352 The job of the philosopher is to distinguish facts about the world from conventions [Putnam]
20962 Habermas seems to make philosophy more democratic [Habermas, by Bowie]
19066 Philosophy aims to understand the world, through ordinary experience and science [Dummett]
16281 Honesty requires philosophical theories we can commit to with our ordinary commonsense [Lewis]
3798 An overexamined life is as bad as an unexamined one [Dennett]
8242 Philosophy aims at what is interesting, remarkable or important - not at knowledge or truth [Deleuze/Guattari]
9327 Organisms understand their worlds better if they understand themselves [Gulick]
18559 Philosophy is empty if it does not in some way depend on matters of fact [Machery]
23531 Philosophers should interpret the world, by expressing its possibilities [Berardi]