Philosophy, Common Sense, and Science

Abstract

Traditionally, philosophy begins when Thales begins to open his eyes — thus anticipating Pescartesadvice—in order to try to see things bevond their appearance. Apparently, there is little or nothing in common to all the innumerable individual things in the world, which seem to differ radically from each other. Nevertheless, Thales claims that, ultimately, they must have—all of them—a shared foundation which has to be found. Though the solution he himself proposed did not gain wide and lasting support, his question, once asked, could not be set aside any more. His followers replaced water by the apeiron, by the pneuma, by the nous, and later on, by the atoms. But they remained faithful to the basic presupposition of the search initiated by Thales. The primordial innocence—accepting things just as they appear to us—is thus forever lost. When Protagoras defends the thesis that in fact things are what they look like, i.e. that behind multiplicity there is no unity whatsoever, he cannot do so without contrastively stressing the expression ‘in fact.’

To live without philosophizing is to have one’ eyes closed without ever trying to open them. Descartes

This strange doubt or fiction, according to which we have been eventually created for being mistaken, even in the most evident things, need not disturb anyone, since it contradicts the very nature of evidence, and the experience and events of life prove its contrary. Leibniz