By Schubert Ogden
There are places, certainly, where Whitehead so speaks of "speculative philosophy," or "philosophic speculation," as to suggest that it is very much the sort of thing I have In in mind in speaking of philosophy in its existential aspect or function.
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True, Whitehead stresses "combining" the scientific outlook with our direct persuasions, rather as Hartshorne stresses philosophy's "mediating" function between science, on the one hand, and religion and theology, on the other. But I, too, have every reason to allow for all this in my understanding of philosophy's existential function – in function—in roughly the same way in which I allow for the presence of empirically falsifiable assertions among the assertions of theology, along with its existentially falsifiable assertions and its experientially nonfalsifiable, strictly metaphysical assertions.
There remain the differences, nonetheless, between philosophy in this "speculative" or "constructive," aspect or function and metaphysics and ethics, strictly and properly so-called, which belong rather to philosophy in its other purely formal, analytic aspect or function. unmigrated-wiki-markup
Another passage in which Whitehead again stresses the "combining" function of philosophy is his discussion of "speculative philosophy" in _Adventures of Ideas_: 285 f. "Speculative philosophy," he says, "embodies the method of the 'working hypothesis.' The purpose of this working hypothesis for philosophy is to coordinate the current expressions of human experience, in common speech, in social institutions, in actions, in the principles of the various sciences, elucidating harmony and exposing discrepancies." In the light of this statement, one can understand when Whitehead also says -- in the concluding paragraph of the chapter on "Speculative Philosophy" in _Process and Reality_ -- "The useful function of philosophy is to promote the most general systematization of civilized thought" (_PR{_}c: 77 \[25 f.\]).also says—in the concluding paragraph of the chapter on "Speculative Philosophy" in Process and Reality—"The useful function of philosophy is to promote the most general systematization of civilized thought" (PRc: 77 [25 f.]).
But to what end, finally, is this "coordination," or "systematization"? There can be little question as to the answer, especially in the light of Whitehead's account in The Function of Reason, according to which reason's function is to serve the art of life—or, in the light of his comments toward the end of Modes of Thought: "Existence is activity ever merging into the future. The aim of philosophic understanding is the aim at piercing the blindness of activity in respect to its transcendent functions." And "[t]he task of a university is the creation of the future, so far as rational thought, and civilized modes of appreciation, can affect the issue" (MTr: 169, But to what end, finally, is this "coordination," or "systematization"? There can be little question as to the answer, especially in the light of Whitehead's account in _The Function of Reason_, according to which reason's function is to serve the art of life -- or, in the light of his comments toward the end of _Modes of Thought_: "Existence is activity ever merging into the future. The aim of philosophic understanding is the aim at piercing the blindness of activity in respect to its transcendent functions." And "\[t\]he task of a university is the creation of the future, so far as rational thought, and civilized modes of appreciation, can affect the issue" (_MT{_}r: 169, 171). Wiki Markup
21 October 2000