The Unity of Philosophical Experience

Lectures given by Etienne Gilson in 1936 at Harvard. Gilson defines the coming war, World War II, as a philosophical war of two different heads of Hegelianism. Communism, which is inspired by a look forward, into what will be, and helping it along (all conjecture of course); and the Hitlarian (Romantic) looking to the past. Thus Hitler's paganism and his desire to rid Europe of all nonindigionious elements, especially Semetic. Christianity, after all, is a conquering force upon the natural purity and indigoniousness of Europe. It is a glorification of what man, or more importantly, a nation (peoples) would be had they been left in their natural state uncorupted by foreign elements. A Darwinian, Rousousian, Kantian mix (among others) that created the ultranationalistic Romanticism. Gilson defines these misguided principles (still the dominant principles of today) as leading to a future tragic bloody war. But it also explains why Japan, in WWII, wished to be rid of Americanism in their culture, and of any foreign influences. Anyway it leads to extreme nationalism that is just an end result of Romanticism. The problems with defining the truth of Hitler to modern minds is we are not far removed from the thesis and antithesis of his metaphyiscal plain.The most important thesis of the book, however, is Gilson's defense that philosophy and more importantly metaphysics is a process and not a conclusion. Once one has made metaphysics a conclusion it ceases to be Metaphysics. Metaphyics can supose a greater truth, like an octagon being closer to a circle than a hexagon, but to incompus all truth is at least a human impossibility. However there have been many cycles in the history were postulations of a "metaphysical" entirety of truth have lead to philosophical cycles of argumentation, sometimes with real physical consequences. These cycles have turned into philosophical battles between true metaphyics and the false. The most recent false metaphicans have been Hegel, Kant, Carte, Hume, Descartes, and William of Ockham, plus their various disciples. The first cycle, Gilson defines, is that of Thales, 2,600 years ago, claiming all is an absolute of everything being air, followed by Anaximenes claiming everything was not air but water, and then Heraclitus caliming all is fire, then the first synthasis of this absurdity was Anaxaimander saying that the common things of all this stuff was indeterminable.Gilson spends most of his effort, 99% of it, in defining the modern and medieaval cycles of metaphysical certatude and the resulting problems. Any summary of it would not do it justice.The importance of this book to historians and pilosophers and historians of philosophy is immense. I don't know of any other book which so vividly paints a picture of modern thinking and how "it" got here than this book. Although I must admit I got hopelessly lost in the discriptions of Descarte's postulations, but the thesis of Descartes was made clear. One could go on forever about this book it is a cornicopia of ideas for further study and expansion. Highly recommended for any student of history or philosophy. Gilson brings a view that cannot be ignored. The question I have for Gilson, if I could ask it, is does Gilson agree that error illuminates the truth, as Aquinas did, and further, if error is good.Gilson convincingly argues that there is unity to the philosophical experience and this experience is illuminating on the nature of man and perhaps more.

When Etienne Gilson looked at the history of philosophy he saw a cycle repeated numerous times. To put it entirely too briefly, a new philosophical movement arises out of skepticism, but is corrupted into some form of idealism before plunging back into skepticism and again requiring rescue. In The Unity of Philosophical Experience, Gilson describes that process and follows it through three different periods--or "experiments"--in the history of philosophy.The problem propelling the cycle is essentially a category error, in which philosophers attempt to "do" philosophy according to the rules of some other discipline. As C.S. Lewis put it in The Discarded Image, "Aristotle had impressed on all who followed him the distinction between disciplines and the propriety of following in each its appropriate method." Failure to do so inevitably leads to a "breakdown," resulting in skepticism.So, for instance, as Gilson first examines "The Medieval Experiment" he shows how Abelard and Ockham undermined the philosophy revived by Aquinas and led to the skepticism of the late Middle Ages/Renaissance. Against that skepticism came mysticism like that of Thomas a Kempis or "the moralism of the Humanists," like Erasmus. With philosophy mired in skepticism, the cycle was set to begin again, and Descartes was there to begin it. Descartes's own cycle ended in the skepticism of Hume, and Kant began the latest rotation, "The Modern Experiment," which had still not concluded in Gilson's day but was leading quite clearly to disaster. In each case, the philosophers in question forced philosophy into the mold of some other discipline. So Ockham with logic, Bonaventure with theology, Descartes with mathematics, Kant with science, and Comte with sociology. They found that philosophy simply didn't fit, and so jettisoned vital parts of philosophy, like metaphysics.Gilson ends the book with a summary and analysis of the cycle and adds seven conclusions drawn from this history. I found it remarkably moving to read this book, published in 1936, in which Gilson makes it clear that the world is heading toward disaster on the basis of false philosophical premises.I have to concur with a few other reviewers that though this book is excellent, it is not for beginners. Even with a background in medieval philosophy the book was still tough going in places. After all, this book began as a series of lectures to university-level philosophy students, so a certain familiarity with philosophy and the history of philosophy is assumed. That said, though the ideas are sometimes difficult the book is briskly written and immensely rewarding.Highly recommended.

This is a good book. However, it's not the best book ever written on the history of philosophy. For one thing, the focus is mostly on metaphysics, which is only one branch of philosophy. Further, I teach introduction to philosophy and I think this would be a difficult introduction to the subject for the average college freshman. Having some background knowledge of philosophy definitely helps while reading.That being said, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of philosophy, philosophy of science, or metaphysics. The writing is lively, engaging, interesting, at times humorous, and extremely quotable. For example, it is in this work that Gilson comments that philosophy always buries its undertakers.This quote is actually at the heart of his thesis. Gilson shows how metaphysics goes through cycles, always culminating in a philosopher thinking he's solved all the problems of philosophy and the discipline is now dead. Yet, it always turns out things are never that simple. To explore this idea, Gilson goes through several iterations of this cycle throughout history and shows how the same problems keep creeping up. He also draws a parallel with how we handle metaphysics and how we handle science, and the ways in which the two disciplines need one another. In the final section, he lays out several laws of metaphysics that he has derived from the observations he makes of the history of philosophy.