The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden

SCANNED PDF

According to Hartshorne, there is a distinction to be made between "the 'grammatical' subjects" and "the nongrammatical subjects" (CSP: 131). "In the 'grammatical' subjects the question is, how do we talk sense rather than nonsense, or how can we be clear and consistent rather than confused or inconsistent." By contrast, "[i]n the nongrammatical subjects, while of course we want to talk clearly and consistently, this is merely preliminary. The main thing is to choose between those clear and consistent ways of speaking which best fit the actual course of history, including natural or cosmic history, and those which fit this course less well, if at all."

Couldn't this distinction be helpfully used to clarify the difference between the wisdom of which philosophy is the love and the knowledge pursued by science, or the sciences, properly so-called?

1 February 1999

  • No labels