|
|
||
 |
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||
|
CLASSICAL ESSAY |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
|
by André Lalande
Science is not "a development of the Homogeneous toward the Heterogeneous," like the increase of species, but it is a free assimilation of one mind to another, of one thing to another, of the things to the minds. That is rather easily recognized. But social progress, if observed without prejudice, becomes manifest not so much as an equilibrium organized by individual ambitions as rather as an involution. That, above all, must penetrate today into common sense. It must be inculcated as deeply as the contrary prejudice has been inculcated. Practically, an improvement has taken place and continues to proceed through the lowering and even the extinction of the organic structures whereto social life at first had evolved spontaneously. The dissolution of the rule of caste and slavery, whose meticulous social differentiation was by heredity, has given room to aristocratic societies which were already less biomorphical but still neighboring, by virtue of their "states," to the organic structure of the living bodies and the societies of the animals; then these aristocratic societies have been dissolved almost everywhere into egalitarian states which appeal to an ideal of assimilation among their citizens. At the same time it has become evident that these egalitarian states are less warlike than the monarchies, dictatorships and oligarchies. It might be objected that this great involution does not exclude inverse movements. Industrial, commercial, financial struggles are too clear examples of that fact. But when vast transformations of the entire status are at stake, there is no progress that is not accompanied by return-currents and reactionary turns. Who is the philosophical mind that would consider mercantilism a progress of civilization, or be happy that an oligarchy of money was established upon the ruins of an aristocracy of birth? At the same time, the progress of civilization has universalized the principles and formulas of the law. There will be noticed also an assimilation of singular rapidity between the social functions of men and those of women, and a retrogression of the old forms of the family which had been organically differentiated. ... The essential task of science in our epoch is to make human masses understand that the imago mundi that led the first years of the 19th century back in the direction of barbary, has not been confirmed by an impartial and scientific reflection. ... Without any doubt, the individual cannot live without conceding a minimum of satisfaction to its egoistical needs, and it is the same with the nations and social groups. But that is a concession and not an ideal.
Excerpted from On the Mission of Philosophy in Our Time (Actes du Huitième Congres Internationale de Philosophie, 1943). |
Vocabulaire
Technique
|
||||
|
Enrich Your Life With a Philosophy Book... Enrich Your Life With a Philosophy Magazine...
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
||
|
|
||
[Homepage] [Newsletter] [Search] [Support the Academy] [Link to Us] [Contact the Academy] [Citing Articles from Our Website] [Privacy Policy & Disclaimer]
Copyright 1998-99, 2000-01, 2002-03, & 2004-05 by The Radical Academy. All Rights Reserved.