问答题
{{U}} {{U}} 1 {{/U}} {{/U}}{{U}}A scientist is apt
to think that all the problems of philosophy will ultimately be solved by
science, I think this is true for a great many of the questions on which
philosophers still argue{{/U}}. For example Plato thought that when we saw
something, one ray of light came to it from the sun, and another from our eyes,
and that seeing was something like feeling with a stick. We now know that the
light comes from the sun, and is reflected into our eyes. We don't know in much
detail how the change in our eyes give rise to sensation. But there is every
reason to think that as we learn more about the physiology of the brain, we
shall do so, and that the great philosophical problems about knowledge and will
are going to be pretty fully cleared up. {{U}} {{U}}
2 {{/U}} {{/U}}{{U}}But if our descendants know the answers to these
questions and others which perplex us today, there will still be one field of
which they do not know, namely the future. However exact our science, we cannot
know it as we know the past. {{U}} {{U}} 3 {{/U}} {{/U}}
Philosophy may be described as argument about things of which we are ignorant.
And where science gives us a hope of knowledge it is often reasonable to suspend
judgment.{{/U}} That is one reason why Marx and Engels quite rightly wrote so
little on many philosophical problems which interested their
contemporaries. But we have got to prepare for the
future, and we cannot do so rationally without some philosophy. Some
people say we have only got to do the duties revealed in the past, and laid down
by religion, and God will look after the future. Others say that the world is a
machine, and the course of future events is certain, whatever efforts we may
make. {{U}} {{U}} 4 {{/U}} {{/U}}{{U}}Marxists say that the future
depends on ourselves, even though we are part of the historical process. This
philosophical view certainly does inspire people to very. great
achievements.{{/U}} Whether it is ture or not (and I think it is true)it is a
powerful guide to action. {{U}} {{U}} 5
{{/U}} {{/U}}{{U}}We need a philosophy, then, to help us to tackle the future.
Agnosticism easily becomes an excuse for laziness and conservatism.{{/U}} Whether
we adopt Marxism or any other philosophy, we cannot understand it without
knowing something of how it developed. That is why a knowledge of the history of
philosophy is important to Marxists, even during the present critical
days.