Abstract

It may be laid down as a general working hypothesis that nothing is a problem that happens according to rule. It is usually assumed by scientists that only deviations from the rule are problematic. And in philosophy, if one is confronted by a diversity of events or data, the problems seem to arise on the occasion of trying to unify them in some way. The ways of philosophic unification are multiple. Philosophers have found unity in material substrata, in formal patterns, in the achievement of purpose, in a single genetic source of things. If it is true that the pre-Socratics were above all interested in a material arché whose transformations were the objects of perceptual experience, the unity which they found would be that arché. Once found, some reason had to be given why the arché should appear to be so diversified. To take another, but somewhat dubious case, if the Pythagoreans were seeking for some geometrical formula which would underlie all diversities, then their program would be an example of the search for formal unity. Teleological patterns, the doctrine of divine creation, combinations of several such dogmas, would exemplify other types of unification. My point is that once some kind of unity is discovered, or assumed, the mind has a resting place and no further search is carried on.