Philosophy
is the only discipline which, by its own definition, embodies the quest for
knowledge and understanding of the nature and meaning of the universe as well
as of human life.
But
after long search of more than 5000 years, to which the greatest minds of human
history have been bent, it has failed to provide any definite answer to such
questions.
Bertrand
Russell was a great thinker of the present world, whose life spanned almost a
century. He spent almost his entire life in reading and writing on
philosophical subjects. But he failed to evolve any credible ideology. Because
of this failure, one of his commentators remarks that “he was a philosopher of
no philosophy.” This is true not only of Bertrand Russell, but also of all
other philosophers. Individually or jointly, they have failed to produce any
philosophical system which might have provided a sound answer to the human
dilemma.
The
main concern of philosophy was to make a unified picture of the world, including
human life. But the long history of philosophy shows that this still remains an
unfulfilled dream. The Encyclopaedia Britannica in its 27-page article on philosophy and its history, admits that there seems to be no possibility of
philosophical unification.
The
article concludes with this remark:
In
the contemporary philosophical universe,
multiplicity
and division still reign. (E.B, Vol. 14:274 [1984] )
Why
this failure? This failure is not of a chance or intermittent nature, but seems
to be a permanent feature of the philosophical approach to reality. The Qur’an
has drawn our attention to this fact, saying:
They put questions to
you about the Spirit. Say:
“The Spirit is at the
command of my Lord and of
Knowledge you have been
given only a little.” (17:85)
This
means that the problem stems from man’s own shortcomings. The philosophical
explanation of the world requires unbounded knowledge, whereas man has had only
limited knowledge bestowed upon him. Due to these intellectual constraints man
cannot uncover the secrets of the world on his own. So it is not the lack of
research, but the blinkered state of the human mind , that stands as a
permanent obstacle in the philosopher’s path to reality.
