Page:Philosophical Review Volume 31.djvu/278

266 have no place in a philosophy which builds its explanations out of knowable material. The only object then that exists in rerum natura is a form of the self's controlled activity. It follows that philosophy must contemplate reality from the viewpoint of the knower, that is, as purely and only experience. The object is considered as it were from within. From any other point of view philosophy subjects itself to the limitations of a strictly scientific conception. This conclusion has been called in question, but we have yet to see any way of setting it aside. The distinction then between what might be called the objective or observational viewpoint of science and the subjective or interpretative viewpoint of philosophy is perhaps their most impressive if not their most fundamental difference. Philosophy's characteristic problems must receive characteristic solutions, such as are all but meaningless to science in its more exacting moods. Only as the rigidity of the scientific attitude is relaxed, and human nature is allowed to assert itself as in need of subjective satisfactions, does philosophy have a chance. Fortunately, as has been said, no scientist can permanently maintain a purely scientific attitude; he too must deal with realities. And these are all realities for a self. It must be a relief to the scientist to turn over to philosophy the troublesome questions that grow out of his studies, yet prove refractory to scientific treatment. This distinction in viewpoint frees science and philosophy, each to pursue its task unmolested by the other, yet each in a way implying, supplementing, completing the other. They seem to speak a different language. Confusions are easy and misunderstandings abound. The only escape from these bewilderments is to keep the two fields sharply defined and distinct. It is hardly needful to remark that the two fields are not separated in such a way as to divide the universe between them. They ask different questions of the same world, and get characteristic answers. As a matter of fact, every problem in science must re-emerge in philosophy, if our world-view is to be properly articulated. Thus the scientific conception of the world holds throughout the whole range of philosophy, but only and everywhere as the co-operative achievement of finite intelligences responding to directive stimulations. On the