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B ecause philosophy is a systematic discipline it reflects in its structure the characteristics of such disci plines: specialized vocabulary, or ganization of material, principles of operation, etc. While this is familiar to the scholar, such paraphernalia appears to render the philosophical enterprise unintelligible to the lay man. For the majority of the philo sophically untrained, the intricacies of systematics tend to mask the im portance of modem thought, espe cially in relationship to the signif icant “ life-issue” questions by which the mind is confronted. When a man who is not a philoso pher reads in the field he may get so lost in the seeming maze of words and ideas that the main thread of the argument and its meaning for everyday life will not emerge clearly. This happens because philosophy ap proaches the problems from two dis tinct points of view. The difference between these must be appreciated before the real importance of the dis cussion will be apparent. It is significant to note that the criticism directed against the philoso pher because of an apparent irrele vancy usually arises from a failure to make this distinction. As a result the philosopher is accused of an in ability to come to grips with the major issues of life when, as a mat ter of fact, he may be addressing himself to another area of investiga tion. A glance at these two major categories of interest is in order. A Theory of Knowledge Philosophy is concerned not only with what there is to know, but also with the problem of how it may be known. This is the special concern of what is described in the language of the trade as epistemology. It must be clear to even the philosophically uninitiated that there is not much point in amassing a wealth of things to know, if there is a decisive ques tion about whether such things, in the nature of the case, can be known. The thinker in this instance is much
like the fisherman who is challenged by all the fish just waiting to be caught but who has forgotten to bring along the right kind of bait and equipment. There is always the possibility that what a man thinks he really knows is after all not an actual re liable possession simply because the intellectual instrument he employed is not able to give this kind of knowl edge. Further, it must be observed that even granting that the instru ment of the mind which is engaged in knowing may be adequate, does not insure that the way in which it is used is correct. These and re lated problems the epistemologist en deavors to decipher; and he may not be criticized adversely because he does not furnish ultimate answers to the immediately pressing problems of everyday living. Until there is some concensus regarding what the mind is capable of knowing and how such a “true” knowledge is to be recognized, there can be no gen eral acceptance of the conclusions by thoughtful men. A Theory of Reality Philosophy also endeavors to de termine, within certain critically achieved limits, the nature of the universe. This is the part of sys tematic thought which appeals to the popular mirtd because it seems to touch the “real” issues directly: such questions as “Where does man come from?” or “What is man’s purpose in this kind of a universe?” or maybe “ Is there a purpose?” Of course, every man has some answer to these ques tions which he feels to be the ade quate answer. This is one of the reasons that a scholar in the field has such a difficult time. People with answers feel that further investiga tion is unwarranted. Difficult as the task may be, however, men of in sight will not rest until every avenue of approach has been utilized in man’s constant battle against the un known.
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