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Untitled Article
to enforce the absolute necessity , as the foundation for all safe practice of a just and unambiguous definition of the subject-matter ; and ] secondly , to show that this definition can only be arrived at by an operation which we should call a philosophical analysis , and which he describes as a process of composition and decomposition , or rather decomposition and recornposition ; first distinguishing a whole into its
kinds or parts , and then looking at those kinds or parts attentively , in such a manner as to extract from them the idea of the whole . This two-fold process of analysis and synthesis is the grand instrument of Plato ' s , method of philosophising . In the comprehension of the general ideas thus obtained , ( or , as he expresses it in this dialogue , the apprehension of the same thing as One and as Many , ) philosophy , according to him , consisted . And this principle is the corner stone , not only of
his logic , but of his metaphysics . «* All who possess the faculty of recognising identity of thought notwithstanding diversity of language , ( which , with the converse power of detecting difference of meaning under identity of expression , is the first characteristic of an intellect fit for philosophy , ) will perceive that this principle of Plato ' s is one on which all systems of logic are substantially in accordance . Bacon , Locke , Condillac , Stewart , and Kant , ( we need
not prolong the enumeration , ) have concurred , both in using and in recommending the method of philosophising which Plato inculcates ; Jthough they are distinguished from one another by the different degre r of clearness which the Platonic principle had assumed in their own minds , and the diversity of the substructure of metaphysical doctrine ? ( for systems of metaphysics , like some birds' nests , are built downwards , not upwards ) which they have constructed underneath it .
When , for instance , Bacon , in defining the scope of all inquiries into the p henomena of nature , directs the inquirer to collect and compare all the accessible instances in which any phenomenon ( say heat or cold , hardness or softness ) manifests itself , and thence to deduce the nature , or as lie calls it , the form , of Heat in general , Cold in general , Hardness and Softness in general , ( forma calidi aut frigidi , &c . ) wherein does this view of philosophic method differ from Plato ' s ? Where , again ,
a disciple of Locke or Condillac describes philosophy as consisting in abstraction and generalization , in the distribution of the objects of nature into convenient classes , and ( by comparison of the different objects composing each class ) framing general propositions expressive of the distinguishing properties of the class ; this too is identical with
Plato s process of arriving at the knowledge of a thing by apprehending it as Many and as One . To apprehend it as Many , is to survey the various objects comprised in the class , and note their resemblances and differences . To apprehend it as One , is to evolve from this comparison a general definition of the class , omitting none of the properties by which as a class it is characterized .
When , however , these various philosophers , not content with cultivating the field of Logic , ( or the science of the investigation of truth , ) have dug down into that region of metaphysics which lies under logic , as it does under all the other sciences , and which must be examined before we can be sure that any of them are securely placed ; the different explorers have brought up very different reports of what they have found there . While all agree in representing it as at least one of the
Untitled Article
644 Plato ' s Dialogues ; the Phmdrus .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1834, page 644, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2637/page/40/
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