The Principles of Philosophy

Abstract

Taking the title of this page literally, I wish to say the following: In this thesis I attempt to resolve some of the metaphilosophical problems concerning the logic of philosophy (i.e. its definition, structural principles, historiography, etc.) in view of the general theory that all of philosophy is but the expression of a single idea--that of the relationship between Reason and Experience. Towards this end, and from within a Kantian framework, I undertake to examine the history of philosophy in order to demonstrate how these basic metaphilosophical problems are generated and how it is that they cannot be solved. The one original claim being made in all of this, then, is simply that philosophy only ever has one thing to say and that this thing cannot be said. If I am right about this, then I have made no contribution to human knowledge, except in the Socratic sense that we now know something which cannot be known. I draw no moral from this except to note in passing that philosophy was first defined as the love of wisdom.