Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Justice in the Revolution and in the Church, Volume I, “Program,” section VII. § VII. Before passing on, will you allow me to make the observation that there is not an artisan who is not in a perfect state to understand what philosophy proposes, since there is not one who, in the exercise of his profession, does not make use of several means of justification, measure, evaluation and control? The worker has, to direct him in his labors, the yardstick, the scale, the square, the rule, the plumb, the level, the compass, standards, specimens, guides, a touchstone, etc. […]

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Justice in the Revolution and in the Church, Volume I, “Program,” section VI. § VI. — That philosophy must be essentially practical. We would be gravely mistaken if we imagined that philosophy, because it defined itself as the Search for the [22] reason of things, has no other end than to make us discover that reason, and that its object is exclusively speculative. Already, by showing that these conditions are those of common sense, its certainty the same for all, its highest conceptions of the same form and quality as its most elementary propositions, we have had occasion […]

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Justice in the Revolution and in the Church, Volume I, “Program,” section V. § V. — That metaphysics is within the province of primary instruction. The definition of philosophy implies by its terms: 1) someone who seeks, observes, analyzes, synthesizes and discovers, which we call the Subject or Moi; 2) something which is observed, analyzed, the reason of which we seek, and which we call the Object or Non-moi. The first – the observer, subject, moi, or mind – is active; the second – the thing observed, object, non-moi, or phenomenon – is passive. Let us not frighten […]

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Justice in the Revolution and in the Church, Volume I, “Program,” section IV. IV.– The origin of ideas. Here is the great temptation, I should say the great conspiracy of the philosophers; here is also their chastisement. This principle so luminous, so simple, that in order to know the reason of things, it is necessary to have seen them, has not always been (can you believe it?) accepted in philosophy. Without speaking of those, in so great a number, aspired to sound the nature of things, one encounters profound geniuses who have asked if the human mind, so […]

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Justice in the Revolution and in the Church, Volume I, “Program,” section III. § III. — On the quality of the philosophical mind. But here is a rather different affair! It is a question of knowing if philosophy, of which it was first said that the people were incapable, will not, by its very practice, create inequality among men. What can we conclude from our definition? Since philosophy is the search for, and, so far as it is possible, the discovery of the reason of things, it is clear that, in order to philosophize well, the first and […]

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Justice in the Revolution and in the Church, Volume I, “Program,” section II. § II. — The definition of philosophy. Philosophy is composed of a certain number of questions that have been regarded at all times as the fundamental problems of the human mind, and that for that reason have been declared inaccessible to the common people. Philosophy, it was said, is the science of the universal, the science of principles, the science of causes; this is why we can speak of universal science, the science of things visible and invisible, the science of God, of man and […]