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Academy Resources Glossary of Philosophical Terms Timeline of Philosophy A Timeline of American Philosophy Diagram: Development of Philosophic Thought Diagram: Divisions of Philosophy The Philosophy Resource Center The Religion Resource Center Books about Philosophy in The Radical Academy Bookstore Books about Religion in The Radical Academy Bookstore Click Here for New & Used College Textbooks at Discount Prices Click Here for College Education Information & Study Resources Shop Amazon Stores in the Radical Academy Bookstore Magazine Outlet Music Store Classical Music Store Video Store DVD Store Computer Store Camera & Photo Store Computer/Video Games Software Store Musical Instruments Outlet Store Cellular Phones Toys & Games Tools & Hardware Automotive Store Outdoor Living Consumer Electronics Home & Garden Kitchen & Housewares Baby Superstore Apparel & Accessories Gourmet Food Grocery Store Sporting Goods Jewelry & Watches Health & Personal Care Beauty Store		The March of Philosophy for Centuries by Francisco Romero   Philosophy has investigated with growing exactness and profoundness the problem of nature, the order and constitution of the physical world. The problem of cognition, namely, the question of how we obtain knowledge of this world, has been raised afterwards. And only much later has philosophy dealt with questions concerning the world of culture, meaning the world of the products of man and his manners of living. At first glance, it seems surprising that the object of research has been at first that which is farthest and most remote from us, the external world, and that only afterwards philosophical curiosity has spread to cognition itself and to culture, which is our most immediate environment, nearest to us not only as environment but also as our creation. But this fact is strange only in appearance. That which concerns us most immediately is not generally the first to be noticed by us. In order to see things, a certain distance that permits perspective is indicated. If the distance does not exist, an effort must be made to adapt the sight in such a manner as to concentrate upon the object which, just by its immediacy and intimacy, is invisible for a spontaneous act of cognition. Of the whole field forming our natural scenery at any moment only a fraction is totally invisible: precisely what concerns us most closely, the square stones which support our feet. The piece of ground which sustains us is at any moment the one we cannot see. This strange rule, according to which the cognition of that which is closest to us is the most difficult and the last, is fulfilled with relative, if not absolute, regularity. The movement of the stars was studied before the evolution of the insects. The child discovers above all the surrounding world and must wait until adolescence in order to realize with anxiety and astonishment the discovery of its intimate feelings. Philosophical thinking seems to follow the same path. The first philosophers of the Occident are called pre-Socratics, a designation which comprises the thinkers from Thales to the atomists, Leucippus and Democritus. Their problem is essentially the problem of being, of the things, the structure and the law of the world. The human spirit that thinks and knows the world, this center of all thought to be reality, this reality incomparable to any other, which is man, remains invisible to them. The pre-Socratics are the ancestors of western philosophy, but, at the same time, they are like children, absorbed by the magnificent spectacle of the exterior world, and ignoring that world which is their own personality. The adolescence of Greek thought, the discovery of the subject, of the problems man is confronted with occurs in the Attic stage with the much abused Sophists and with Socrates. When they formulated first questions concerning the essence of man, the problems of the things had already been examined from all sides.   Excerpted from The Problems of the Philosophy of Culture, by Francsico Romero   Enrich Your Life With a Philosophy Book... Enrich Your Life With a Philosophy Magazine... Academy Showcase Specials     Introduction & Directory
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