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Science is organised knowledge. Wisdom is organised life.

Will Durant on Kant, The Story of Philosophy, 1926

Philosophy

The story behind the card

These are the words of the American historian Will Durant (1885–1981), not of Kant. In The Story of Philosophy (1926), a bestseller that brought philosophy to a wide public, Durant explained Kant's view of the mind as a ladder of ever greater order: sensation, perception, conception, then ‘science is organized knowledge, wisdom is organized life’. Readers later lifted the last two steps and credited them to Kant himself. The first half is older still: the English philosopher Herbert Spencer had called science organised knowledge in 1861.

Türkçe oku
Bilim, düzenlenmiş bilgidir. Bilgelik, düzenlenmiş yaşamdır.
Will Durant, Kant üzerine, Felsefenin Öyküsü, 1926

Bu sözler Kant'ın değil, Amerikalı tarihçi Will Durant'ındır (1885–1981). Durant, felsefeyi geniş bir okur kitlesine sevdiren çok satan kitabı Felsefenin Öyküsü'nde (1926) Kant'ın zihin anlayışını, düzeni giderek artan bir merdiven gibi anlatır: duyum, algı, kavram, ardından “bilim düzenlenmiş bilgidir, bilgelik düzenlenmiş yaşamdır”. Okurlar sonradan bu son iki basamağı alıp Kant'ın kendi sözü sandı. Cümlenin ilk yarısı daha da eskidir: İngiliz filozof Herbert Spencer bilimi 1861'de “düzenlenmiş bilgi” diye tanımlamıştı.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Immanuel Kant
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