A Philosophy for A Modern Man

WHAT MEN DEMAND OF A PHILOSOPHY

For ordinary men and women, a philosophy will have meaning and importance
when it is based on the assumptions the material world forces them to make in their
practice of life, when it illuminates their relation to the world and to society, and so acts
as a guide to conduct.

BRINOINO PHILOSOPHY TO EARTH

Philosophers are not commonly regarded as men of affairs. During a crisis

politicians do not turn to them with eagerness for guidance on matter of high policy. In
undertaking large-scale ventures business men do not call them in as men of clear vision
and understanding to submit schemes to their judgment. Even scientific men pay scant
heed to the interpretations philosophers’ offer of their findings. The man in the street is the
only person who will treat them with due respect, with the respect he will give to any rare
incomprehensible specimen.

There are of course good reasons why these estimates of the importance of the
philosopher should have arisen. His speculations, thoughts, and word spinning, appear to
have no significant outcome, and to make no evident contact at any point with the life
and actions of ordinary people. The test is a practical one and to that extent is valid. If
philosophers are never called in to advise, as architects, consulting engineers, geologists
and lawyers are called in, then it can only mean at the best that in the social and
individual aspects of life, their philosophy plays no conscious part

WHAT MEN DEMAND OF A PHILOSOPHY

In this book we profess to attempt a complete break with this tradition. If a

philosophy does not illuminate the practice of ordinary life, we maintain it fails in its
function. It must be something drawn from the world of human affairs and guiding it. To
lead a philosophy in this way from the barren wilderness of speculation into the rough
and tumble of action is more than to violate the traditional meaning of philosophy. To
suggest that its truth be consciously and deliberately tested by human beings in the fire
of practice is to demand that, like science, it stand or fall by its active meaning for man.

For we are born and cradled in struggle. Our power of understanding is a vital
matter in our efforts to safeguard ourselves against the uncertainties of the world about
us. We have to know our world, to understand and piece together its behaviour, so
accurately, that we can anticipate its next move. We have to rise above this: we have
so to alter circumstances, so to change the world in the present that as far as possible it
will move according to our desires in the future. For man is also a creature of hopes, ideals
and aspirations, dreaming of a world in which the finer things he values can be his to
practise and enjoy. These ideals also we have to understand, whence they arise, how
they have to be transformed to make them capable of realisation. They have to be
separated into true and false, those that are potentially true because capable of being
brought to fruition, and those essentially false because they cannot correspond to any
attainable state of affairs. In short, if a philosophy is to be a real living guide to man, it
must illuminate the part he has to play in reshaping the world so that his ideals may finally
be achieved.

These are heavy demands to make on a philosophy, but they are nothing more
than human demands. They will not be attained unless once and for all we break with
the past, by demising the idea that philosophy b contaminated when it addresses itself
to the mundane matters of life, when it enters into the hurly-burly of political controversy,
and when it accepts as valid certain dictates of common sense that are valid because
tested by the ordinary man in handling of the world. If it is to be a philosophy for a real
human beings it cannot wait to question whether the universe exists, but must pass to a
study of the nature of that existence. We know the truth, you and I. It will be futile to argue
moreover that the matters we have touched on, fall properly under other headings,
sociology, science, ethics, religion or politics, and are not there- fore the concern of
philosophers. If our problems are human problems we cannot ignore those things that
are vital to human beings, by withdrawing ourselves from the immediate and practical
task of using our science, sociology, our history, and our politics to shape the world
according to our needs. We must not fight with hands tied. If it is a fact that life is a
ceaseless struggle from which knowledge and wisdom are distilled, and living thereby
transformed, then only in wrestling consciously and fully armed with the forces of nature,
and with the crudities and obstructions of mankind itself, can a human philosophy be
created that will clarify that struggle and bring its objective into consciousness. Within its
circle, therefore, it must encompass science and art and all other human activities. A
philosophy must simultaneously be an avenue to under- standing, and a spur to action,
not an escape into inactive contemplation.
PHILOSOPHY AT WORK

Compared with our continental brothers, Englishmen appear highly reluctant to

set out their social philosophy in measured terms, and to strive for its application in
practice. Except during the past few years, the dead calm of the British Universities has
always contrasted strangely with the fervid political atmosphere in which the University
life of Germany, France and Russia has been steeped. There have been critical
occasions, as during the French Revolutionary period when individual scholars and
scientists have broken down their academic aloofness and challenged the forces of
reaction, but these have been special occasions.

WHAT MEN DEMAND OF A PHILOSOPHY

There is no counterpart in England for example of the struggle for a liberal

constitution waged by students and professors alike in the German Universities during the
post-Napoleonic years of 1813-1820; the rise of the Burschenschaft groups, the mass
demonstrations of students and professors in 1817, the winning of constitutions for Bavaria,
Baden and Wurtemberg, the newspaper campaigns, the pamphleteering, and the
philosophical disquisitions that led to the assassination of the poet Kotzebue in 1819; the
dissolution of the Burschcnschaften, the governmental supervision of University teaching,
the exclusion of teachers and students suspected of liberal views, and their imprisonment,
the censorship of books and newspapers. It was a period of ferment among the
bourgeois class in their joint struggle for Nationalism and State power. Even when the
campaign broadened and reached the mass of the people after the introduction of
repressive measures, the Universities still played their part. In the parliament that was
elected in 1848, a repercussion from the corresponding movements in France, out of the
500 deputies elected there were 150 professors. The history of how philosophy was used
as a weapon of attack or of defence by the one side or the other in this struggle is itself
illuminating. I need here refer only to Fichte (1762-18x4), expelled from his professorship
at Jena because of the suspicion that he was an atheist, who more than any other
contributed to arouse in the student youth the great surge of national sentiment in 1813.
Of Hegel (1770-1830) we need hardly speak. The way in which his idealist philosophy of
dialectical change was applied to justify the reactionary policy of the Prussian State is
too well known. It has since then been resurrected on behalf of Fascist ideology. In 1832
Feuerbach was deprived of his chair; four years later he was an outspoken critic of
religion. By 1841 he had become a materialist. In 1842 the left Hegelian, Bruno Bauer, was
also forbidden to lecture. It was in this atmosphere of political ferment, intermingled with
philosophical controversy, that the young Marx grew up. By 1843 he already removed to
Paris in order the more freely to carry on the attack.