Chapter VII: The Phenomenology of Error and the History of Philosophy

[Sidenote: _Inseparability of the phenomenology of error from the philosophic system. _]

The phenomenology of error, in its double sense of error and of suggestion, coincides therefore with the philosophic system. Both error and suggestion are improper combinations of philosophic ideas or concepts. To determine these improper combinations is equivalent to showing the _obverse_ of that of which the philosophic system is the _face._ But face and obverse are not separable, for they constitute a single thought (and single reality), which is positivity-negativity, affirmation-negation. There is, therefore, no phenomenology of error outside the philosophic system, nor a philosophic system outside the phenomenology of error; the one is conceived at the moment when the other is conceived. And since the philosophic system and the doctrine of the categories are the same, the phenomenology of error is inseparable and indistinguishable from the doctrine of the categories.

[Sidenote: _The eternal going and coming of errors._]

As such the phenomenology of error is an ideal and eternal circle, like the eternal circle of the truth. Its stages are eternally traversed and retraversed by the spirit, being the stages of the spirit itself. At every instant of the life of history and of our individual life there are represented the stages that have been surpassed and must again be surpassed: the lower stages return and announce beforehand the higher.

[Sidenote: _Returns to anterior philosophies, and their meaning._]

In this lies the origin of a fact which cannot fail to attract attention in the history of philosophy: the tendency which is found there, to _return_ to one or other of the philosophies of the past, or, more correctly, to one or other of the philosophic points of view of the past. The thirteenth century returned to Aristotle, the Renaissance to Plato; Bruno revived the philosophy of Cusanus, Gassendi that of Epicurus; Hegel wished to renew Heraclitus; Herbart, Parmenides; in recent times a return has been made to Kant, and in times yet more recent to Hegel. These are spiritual movements, which must be understood in all their seriousness. This consists wholly in the need of the philosophic spirit of a certain moment, which, struggling with an error, discovers the true concept with which it should be corrected, or at least, the superior and more ample suggestion, to which we must pass in order to progress. And since that concept or suggestion had already been represented in an eminent degree in the past by one particular philosopher, or by one particular school, they speak of the necessity of again asserting the superiority of that philosopher and his school against other philosophers and other schools. In reality neither Aristotle nor Plato returns, nor Cusanus nor Epicurus, nor Heraclitus nor Parmenides, nor Kant nor Hegel; but only the mental positions of which these names are, in those cases, the symbols. The eternal Platonism, Aristotelianism, Heracliteanism, Eleaticism are in us, as they were formerly in Plato and in Aristotle, in Heraclitus and in Parmenides. Divested of those historical names, they are called transcendentalism and immanentism, evolutionism and anti-evolutionism, and so on. To the philosophers of the past, as men of the past, no return is made, because _no return is possible._ The past lives in the present and the pretence of returning to it is equivalent to that of destroying the present, in which alone it lives. Those who understand _ideal_ returns in this _empirical_ sense, do not in truth know what they are saying.

[Sidenote: _The false idea of a history of philosophy as the history of the successive appearances in time of the categories and of errors._]

But just because the phenomenology of error and the system of the categories are outside time, we must also recognize the fallacy of a history of philosophy which expounds the development of philosophic thought as a successive appearance in time of the various philosophic categories and of the various forms of error. On this view the human race seems to begin to think truly philosophically at a definite moment of time and at a definite point of space; for example at a definite year of the seventh or sixth century before Christ, at a definite point of Asia Minor, with Thales, who surpassing mere fancy posits as a philosophic concept the empirical concept of water; or in another year and place, with Parmenides, who posits the first pure concept, that of being. And it seems further to progress in philosophic thinking with other thinkers, each of whom either discovers a concept or offers a suggestion of one. Thus each takes the other's hand and they form a chain which is prolonged to one who, more audacious and fortunate than the others, gives his hand to the first, and unites them all in a circle. After this, there would remain nothing else to do but to dance eternally, as the stars dance in the imaginations of the poets, without any further necessity to devise suggestions and to risk falling into error. All this is brilliant but arbitrary. The categories are outside time, because they are all and singly in every instant of time, and therefore they cannot be divided and impersonated within empirical and individual limits. It is not true that each philosophic system has for its beginning a particular category or a particular suggestion. A philosophic system, in the empirical signification of the word, is a series of thoughts whose unity is the empirical bond of the life of a definite individual. It is therefore without beginning, since it does not constitute a true unity and refers on the one hand to its predecessors, on the other to those who continue it, and on all sides to its contemporaries. In the strict sense, in that system, in so far as it is philosophic, there is always the whole of philosophy; and therefore, as we have previously seen, all philosophic systems (including materialism and scepticism) have, whether they admit it or not, displayed or implied the same principle, which is the pure concept, and every philosophy is idealism. Nor is it true that there is progress in the history of philosophy, in the sense of the passage from one category to another superior category, or from one suggestion to another superior suggestion. Speaking empirically, we should have in this case to admit regress also, because it is a fact that a return is made to inferior categories and suggestions. Philosophically, we can speak in this case, neither of progress nor of regress, seeing that those categories and suggestions are eternal and outside time.

Finally, this conception of philosophic history itself declares its untenability, since in its last term it is logically obliged to posit a definitive philosophy (which is that represented by him who constructs such a history of philosophy), whereas there is nothing definitive in reality, which is perpetual development. Those very historians of philosophy themselves, who have desired and in part attempted to give actuality to that conception, have been perplexed at the assumption of so great a responsibility as to proclaim a _definitive philosophy,_ that is to say, to decree the retirement of Thought and so of Reality.

[Sidenote: _Philosophism both of this false view and of the formula concerning the identity of philosophy and history of philosophy._]

The error which appears in this conception of philosophic history, is the same that we have already studied under the name of philosophism, and which appears here in one of its special applications. The formula of the error is the _identity of Philosophy with the History of philosophy._ The sense in which this is meant is at once shown by the tendency which exists in this identity of the two terms, to be enlarged into a third term, that is to say, into the recognition of the identity of philosophy and of the history of philosophy with the _Philosophy of history._ And this Philosophy of philosophic history, like every philosophy of history, converts representations and empirical concepts into pure concepts assigning to each one the function which properly belongs to the categories, corrupting philosophy and history and becoming shipwrecked in a sort of mythologism and propheticism.

[Sidenote: _Distinction between this false idea of a history of philosophy and the books that are so entitled or profess a like programme._]

But, as in the case of the philosophy of history in general, so also in this application of it to the history of philosophy, it is necessary to recognize the elements of truth. These lie in the works of genius in _historical characterization,_ which under this guise have been achieved by various thinkers and in various epochs of philosophy. Certainly Plato is not only transcendental, nor is Aristotle only immanentist; nor Kant only agnostic, nor Hegel only logical, nor Epicurus only materialist, nor Descartes only dualist; nor is Greek thought concerned only with objectivity, nor modern thought with subjectivity alone. But history takes shape as historical narrative, by noting the prominent traits of the various individuals and of the various epochs. Without this process it would be impossible to divide, to summarize, or to record it; without the introduction of empirical concepts, history could not be fixed in the memory.[1] By means of those characterizations, it also happens that historical names can be taken as symbols of truths and errors: all the crudity of dualism is expressed in Descartes, the paradox of determinism in Spinoza, that of abstract pluralism in Leibnitz. We owe (as is admitted by all those competent to judge) the elevation of the history of philosophy from a chronicle or an erudite collection to history properly so-called, to historians of philosophy who were tainted with philosophism. And since Hegel was the first and greatest of those historians, we must impute to Hegel the arbitrary act that he committed, but also the merit of having been the first to give a history of philosophy worthy of the name and accord to him all the more merit, in so far as he almost always corrected in execution the errors of his original plan.[2]

[Sidenote: _Exact formula: identity of philosophy and of history._]

This original plan (and in general the position taken up by the system of Hegel) may perhaps be considered as a deviation and aberration from a just impulse, which still awaits its legitimate satisfaction. This satisfaction we have attempted to give, by going deeply into the meaning of the Kantian _a priori_ synthesis and by establishing the identity of philosophy and history. Thus, as regards the question at issue, the formula that we oppose to Hegel's formula of the identity of _philosophy and history of philosophy,_ is that of the identity of _philosophy and history._ This difference may at first sight seem non-existent or very slight, but yet it is substantial. Philosophy is indeed identical with history, because by solving historical problems it affirms itself, and is in this way identical with the history of philosophy, not because this is separable from other histories, or has precedence over them, but for precisely the contrary reason, that it is altogether inseparable from and completely fused in the totality of history, according to the unity in distinction already explained. Hence it is seen that philosophy does not originate in time, that there are not philosophic men and non-philosophic men, that there are not concepts belonging to one individual which another individual is without, nor mental efforts which one makes and another does not make, and that philosophy, or all the categories, operates at every instant of the spiritual life, and at every instant of the spiritual life operates upon material altogether new, given to it by history, which for its part it helps to create. This amounts to saying that from that concept we obtain the criticism of philosophism and of the formula expressing the identity of Philosophy, History of Philosophy and Philosophy of history; and a more exact idea of the history of philosophy, free from the chains of an arbitrary classification.

[Sidenote: _The history of philosophy and philosophic progress._]

It may seem that in this way we destroy all idea of philosophic progress; and certainly philosophy, taken in itself, that is to say as an abstract category, does not progress any more than the category of art or of morality progresses. But philosophy in its concreteness progresses, like art and the whole of life; it progresses, because reality is development, and development, including antecedents in consequences, is progress. Every affirmation of truth is conditioned by reality and conditions a new reality, which, in turn, is in its progress, the condition of a new thought and of a new philosophy. In this respect it is true that a philosophy which comes later in time, contains the preceding philosophies in itself, and not only when it is truly a philosophy, adequate to the new times, which comprehend ancient times in themselves, but even when it is a simple suggestion, of the kind we have called erroneous and in need of correction. As erroneous suggestion it will be, ideally, inferior to the truths already discovered. The scepticism of David Hume, for instance, is inferior from this point of view, not only to Cartesianism, but even to Scholasticism, to Platonism and to Socraticism. But historically it is superior even to the most perfect of those philosophies, because it is occupied with a problem which they did not propose to themselves and initiates its solution, by forming a first attempt at solution, however erroneous. Those perfect philosophies belong to the past, this, though imperfect, has the future in itself. Thus it is explained how we sometimes find far more to learn in philosophers who have maintained errors than from others who have maintained truths; the errors of the former are gold in the quartz, which when it has been purified will add weight and value to the mass of gold, which is already in our possession and has been preserved by the latter. Fanatics content themselves with truths, however poor they are, and therefore seek those who repeat them, even though they be poor of spirit. True thinkers seek for adversaries, bristling with errors and rich with truth; they learn from them, and while opposing, love and esteem them; indeed, their opposing them is at the same time an act of esteem and of love.

[Sidenote: _The truth of all philosophies, and critique of eclecticism._]

The philosophy which each one of us professes at a determinate moment, in so far as it is adequate to the knowledge of facts and in the proportion in which it is adequate, is the result of all preceding history, and in it are organically brought together all systems, all errors and all suggestions. If some error should appear to be inexplicable, some suggestion without fruit, some concept incapable of adoption, the new philosophy is to that extent more or less defective. But the organic reconciliation, which preceding philosophies must find in those that follow, cannot be the bare bringing them together in time, and _eclecticism,_ as in those superficial spirits, who associate fragments of all philosophies without mediation. Eclecticism (from the historical point of view also, as for instance in the relation of Victor Cousin to Hegel, whom he admired, imitated and failed to understand) is the falsification or the caricature of the vastness of thought, which embraces in itself all thoughts, though apparently the most diverse and irreconcilable. The peace of the lazy, who do not collide with one another, because they do not act, must not be made sublime and confounded with the lofty peace that belongs to those who have striven and have fraternized after strife, or, indeed, during the actual combat.

[Sidenote: _Researches concerning the authors and precursors of truths: and the reason for the antinomies which they exhibit._]

A proof of this _constancy_ of philosophy, which is immanent in all philosophies and in all the thoughts of men, and also of its perpetual variation and novelty of historical form, is to be found in the questions that have been and are raised, concerning the _origin_ or _discovery_ of truth. Hardly has the truth been discovered, when the critics easily succeed in proving that it was already known, and begin the search for _precursors._ And there can be no doubt that they are right and their researches deserve to be followed up. Every assertion of discovery, in so far as it seems to make a clear cut into the web of history, has something arbitrary about it. Strictly speaking, Socrates did not discover the concept, or Vico æsthetic fancy, or Kant the _a priori_ synthesis, or Hegel the synthesis of opposites; nor even perhaps, did Pythagoras discover the theorem of the square on the hypotenuse, or Archimedes the law of the displacement of liquids. If a discovery is represented as an explosion, this happens for reasons of practical and mnemonic convenience in narrating and summarising history; and, for that matter, the explosion, the eruption and the earthquake are continuous processes. But the rational side of the search for precursors must not cause the acceptance of the irrational side, which is the denial of the _originality_ of discoveries, as though they were to be found point for point in the precursors, or as though they consisted only in the aggregation of elements which pre-existed, or in like insignificant changes of form. To attach oneself to precursors, does not mean to repeat them, but to continue their work. This continuation is always new, original, and creative and always gives rise to discoveries, be they small or great. To think is to discover. The reduction to absurdity of the wrong meaning of the search for precursors is to be found in the fact that every one of the most important thoughts can be discovered in a certain sense in common beliefs, in proverbs, in ways of speech, and among savages and children. This is so much the case that by this path we can return to the Utopia of an _ingenuous_ philosophy, outside history; whereas philosophy is truly ingenuous or genuine only when it _is,_ and it is not, save in History.

[Footnote 1: See above, Part II. Chap. III.]

[Footnote 2: See ch. ix. _What is Living and What is Dead of the Philosophy of Hegel,_ by the Author, English translation by Douglas Ainslie.]