SECTION ONE

Chapter 2

29. There are, therefore, two principles that establish accurate, true method in philosophical inquiries. Similarly, there can be only two types of defect in theories that have developed regarding the human spirit: some tend to offend against the first principle by not assuming enough to explain all the facts; others offend against the second principle by too easily admitting in the spirit things unnecessary to explain observed facts, and by fabricating hypotheses superfluous to requirements.

30. It is not easy to avoid these two dangers. Indeed, philosophy, when it evades both, may truly be considered near to perfection. Such completion cannot be attained 1. without full observation of facts; 2. until characteristic or specific facts have been accurately distinguished and isolated from others that exhibit only non-essential variants or barren repetition of identical facts; finally 3. until, on the one hand, the difficulties of explaining the facts have been discovered and weighed, and on the other, an assessment has been made of the force of the arguments assumed to explain the facts. If these two features are not accurately appraised and carefully weighed by the philosophical mind, the arguments put forward will either be invalid or contain unnoticed superfluities.

31. Although popular philosophy(40) commits errors springing from non-observance of one or all of these three points, such mistakes usually infringe the first of the two principles already indicated.
Popular philosophy is never based upon thoroughgoing observation; it is incapable of classifying the observed facts, that is, of distinguishing characteristic from uncharacteristic facts. It is quite satisfied to have gathered a large number of facts, without realising that the real value of observations depends not on the number of ordinary, similar facts but on the number of characteristic facts, that is, those marking out a species. Finally, popular philosophy does not penetrate the interior nature of the fact itself; it does not grasp where the difficulty of created being lies nor is it aware of how forceful its explanation has to be. Popular philosophy is imperfect and deficient in all these areas.

32. The defect proper to popular philosophy is easily perceived by anyone accustomed to reflect. We all have dealings of some kind with ordinary people and are able to observe in their way of thinking two apparently contradictory characteristics which, however, have the same cause: they lack the three conditions mentioned above as necessary for philosophical reflection.
On the one hand, ordinary people do not wonder at things which are intrinsically wonderful, because such things are familiar in daily life. Ask them the reason for these things, and ordinary people think they can give you an immediate, satisfactory response by pointing to what they think is natural and obvious. They will almost go so far as to smile at the naivety of your ignorance, or your apparent ignorance. That is why uneducated people ask themselves so few questions. They see only very few, extraordinary difficulties which they believe they can solve immediately by offering what they consider reasons, or are rather crude, incontrovertible assumptions.

On the other hand, you may succeed in raising doubts in their minds about their proposed solution and enable them to grasp the presence of some knotty problem. If so, their first reaction will be to take the exactly opposite viewpoint. Previously, they solved the problem without the slightest hitch; now, after having finally understood your objection, they will have great difficulty in seeing the reason capable of explaining the issue. Previously, they had no hesitation in accepting their own explanation; now, they find it practically impossible to accept any suitable explanation of the difficulty.

33. In other words, the error underlying theories which make use of inadequate, defective reflection to explain facts connected with the human spirit is in keeping with popular arguments. By contrast, the error of those who use more than is necessary to explain the same facts is typical of people who have already made some progress in philosophy. Using their philosophical insight, they have already seen some problems, but are as yet unable to explain them simply. This comes much later. First reasons, which are always conjectural, extremely complex and involved, are welcomed and accepted by the impatient human mind which on the one hand has nothing better to offer but on the other cannot endure a total lack of explanation.

34. Hence three philosophical periods, as it were. First, popular philosophy, which is undemanding in its approach. It either does not grasp problems at all or has only a vague grasp of them; consequently, it explains them by concocting crude, confused hypotheses. In the second period, philosophy has become scholarly and has by now fully grasped the difficulties inherent in its earlier hypotheses. As a result, it spurns ancient, popular theories. Ingenious, complex systems are created, which are usually as over-elaborate as the initial systems were inadequate. Philosophy is defective in each of these two periods. The first stage is inadequate because it is new to problems; the second because it is new to solving problems. As it gradually becomes more perfect, philosophy corrects these inadequacies by simplifying and completing its theories. It has then entered the third period, when it attains perfection.

(40) I use the term popular philosophy for the imperfect form of philosophy still surviving among the mass of philosophers at a time when the world already possesses great and profound philosophical knowledge, such as that contained in so many books coming down to us from antiquity and subsequent centuries.In the last century, an attempt was made to renounce the whole legacy bequeathed by our ancestors. Philosophy reverted to a state of infancy. This is what I would call 'popular philosophy', because people in general are accustomed to address questions in the form in which they first occur, despite changes in the state and nature of the questions when they become the object of more mature and profound philosophy. Descartes caused a scandal by choosing, single-handedly and with very little study of earlier philosophers, to set up a philosophical structure despite that already constructed by previous centuries. His great intellect and the few ideas which he received from the Schoolmen - which he used profitably without acknowledgement, perhaps even without adverting to his debt - saved him from many errors. His work has its faults, but it is extraordinary, nevertheless, when considered as the work, I was about to say, of a single mind. Locke, much less gifted intellectually than Descartes, tried to exhibit the same outspoken approach, but is characteristic of the true age of popular, 'infant' philosophy to which I am referring.