Abstract

PHILOSOPHERS have a patrimony of ninety generations or so of philosophical experience. Collingwood's plea that we take this cumulative legacy seriously I am disposed to repeat. Philosophical experience rewards the labor of philosophic thought quite as geological experience rewards the labor of geological thought, and mathematical experience that of mathematical thought. Philosophical experience brings to light the categories and categorial order. It thus makes its contribution to interscientific meaning, which is the distinction and mark of philosophy among the sciences. Think of it as a hard-won richesse, a communal fund, to which multitudes of our predecessors have added and upon which they have drawn, as we now are professionally qualified to do. So viewed, philosophical experience records a communal venture, an itinerarium mentis, towards system and categorial coherence.