Turning Point in Philosophy ZoLAists Diary（转折点在哲学ZoLAist日记）.pdfVIP

The Turning Point in Philosophy BY MORITZ SCHLICK (TRANSLATED BY DAVID RYNIN) FROMTIME to time prizes have been established for essays on the question what progress philosophy has made in a given period. The period tends to be limited on the one side by the name of some great thinker, on the other by the present. It was thus assumed that there is some degree of clarity regarding the philosophic progress of man- kind up to the time of that thinker, but that it is dubious what further contributions have been made in recent times. Such questions clearly express a certain mistrust concerning the philosophy of the period which had recently elapsed. One has the impression of being presented only with an embarrassed formulation of the question: Has philosophy in that period made any progress whatever? For if one were sure that contribtttionshad been made one would also know in what they consisted. If the more remote past is regarded with less scepticism and one is rather inclined to see in its philosophy a continuous devel- opment, the explanation may be that ones attitude towards every- thing whose place is established in history is tinged with greater re- spect. A further point is that the oldex philosophers have at least demonstrated their historical influence. Hence in considering them one can take as ones base their historical rather than their substantive importance, especially since one often does not venture to distinguish between the two. But it is just the ablest thinkers who most rarely have believed that the results of earlier philosophizing, including that of the classical models, remain unshakable. This is shown by the fact that basically every new system starts again from the beginning, that every thinker Die Wende Der Philosophie, as this piece is