The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden

SCANNED PDF

As for the objection that I so understand philosophy that it interferes with the proper business of the different areas of life and the different forms of critical reflection corresponding thereto, there are two thoughts that I take to be relevant to meeting it.

One is the thought that philosophy, on my understanding, no more controls religion and theology than they control it (cf. Notebooks, 23 January 1998). The other, is that integral to the wisdom for which philosophy is the search is realizing that, in knowing what it means, say, to do science, and how it is to be done, philosophy does not, and cannot, know what cannot possibly be known except by actually doing science, and doing it in this way (cf. Notebooks, 31 October 1998; rev. 10 September 2005).

29 November 2005 

Could it be that the most serious objection to the kind of philosophical theology that I am prepared to defend is that it, in effect, meddles in the proper business of the particular area of life and of the particular form of critical reflection (or "special science") that has to do with this area—which is to say, religion and theology?

Possibly so. In any case, I fail to see how philosophical theology can be simply denied the existentialist function I assign it without begging the question against the necessary correspondence of the logical and the ontological. Moreover, if I am right that philosophical theology's answer to the existential question not only has to confirm but must also be confirmed by that of any true religion or theology, it is hard to see how philosophical theology, as I view it, can be fairly accused of interfering in the proper business of religion and theology.

23 January 1998; rev. 16 June 2008 

To be wise in the sense of the wisdom of which philosophy is the love, or for which it is the search, is twofold.It is not only to know the truth about human existence as such—what it means to exist, and how one ought to do so—but also to know the truth about all of "the directed activities of mankind" (Whitehead), i.e., the various forms of life-praxis and culture—what it means to engage in them, and how one ought to do so.

It also belongs to wisdom in this sense, however, to know that the truth that it knows about these various activities is distinct from the truth, or, more generally, the validity, that they, and only they, not philosophy, are in a position to know. Thus, for example, to know what it means to do science, and how it ought to be done is not to knoow what can be known only by actually doing science, and doing it in this way.

31 October 1998; rev. 10 September 2005

  • No labels