THE RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY TO PSY¬ 
CHOLOGY AND TO PHYSIOLOGY. 
BY^ 
Joseph Le Conte. 
[Read before the Society, January 30,1892.] 
DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY AS USED IN THIS ARTICLE. 
I am embarrassed at the outset by the different meanings 
given to the word philosophy. Sometimes it is used to sig¬ 
nify the mere attitude of the mind toward truth, and some¬ 
times it refers to the subject-matter of thought. Again, on 
this latter and more usual view, sometimes it refers to the 
highest aspects of knowledge in each department, and 
especially to the relation of these highest truths to one an¬ 
other, and thus becomes the science of the sciences. Some¬ 
times it refers to the study of the grounds of validity of 
human knowledge, and sometimes, lastly, it refers to the 
study of the phenomena of the self-determined activities 
of free spirit as contrasted with the necessary activities of 
nature— i. e., metaphysics as contrasted with physics, or 
metakinetics as contrasted with kinetics. It is somewhat in 
this last sense— i. e., as the science which treats of the activi¬ 
ties of free, self-conscious spirit (Jouet) or the phenomenology 
of spirit (Hegel)—that I shall use the term philosophy in 
this article. There certainly ought to be a name for the 
study of these very distinct phenomena. I am encouraged 
to use this one by its use by Jouet in the same or a similar 
sense; but if any one can suggest a better one I will gladly 
adopt it. 
4—Bull. Phil. Soc., Wash., Vol. 12. 
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