Gerald Bivens

Another criticism akin to that just discussed is that the view here taken of the work and office of philosophy rests upon a romantic exaggeration of what can be accomplished by "intelligence." If the latter word were used as a syonym for what one important school of past ages called "reason" or "pure intellect," the criticism would be more than justified. But the word names something very different from what is regarded as the highest organ or "faculty" for laying hold of ultimate truths. It is a shorthand designation for great and ever-growing methods of observation, experiment and reflective reasoning which have in a very short time revolutionized the physical and, to a considerable degree, the physiological conditions of life, but which have not as yet been worked out for application to what is itself distinctively and basically human. It is a newcomer even in the physical field of inquiry; as yet it hasn't developed in the various aspects of the human scene. The reconstruction to be undertaken is not that of applying "intelligence" as something ready-made. It is to carry over into any inquiry into human and moral subjects the kind of method (the method of observation, theory as hypothesis, and experimental test) by which understanding of physical nature has been brought to its present pitch.¹