The Heraclitean Fire
Edmund Parsons
Routledge eBooks October 10, 2018 DOI: 10.4324/9780429401220-2 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that divine intervention is not an explanation in philosophy or science but a confession of philosophic or scientific impotence, and that starting explicitly with God is not philosophy, a point the author says even Aquinas knew. Also contends that reducing a philosophy to solipsism reduces it to absurdity. |
Abstract
The new generation of philosophers has little time for the unpleasantly coloured rodents that were the favourite hallucinations of Professor Broad and his contemporaries; it prefers to sow its wild oats in the sophisticated paradise of mescaline. The reduction of any philosophy to solipsism is its reduction to absurdity, as consistent subjective idealists are acutely aware; hence their desperate efforts to avoid having their noses rubbed into that mess of their own making. To start with God certainly describes the widest circle imaginable, but explicitly to start with God is not philosophy; as even Aquinas knew. Divine intervention is not an explanation in either philosophy or science; it is a confession of philosophic or scientific impotence. Looked at through a philosophical microscope, the useful generality of its meaning appears so fuzzy that there is some difficulty in bringing it into focus.