Page:An introduction to philosophy (IA Introductiontoph00brig 0).pdf/47

There is no single order in which the problems of philosophy must be taken up. Some would prefer to plunge at once into the task of interpreting experience, making progress from the point where one happens to be and profiting as best one can by one’s mistakes. Others would insist that the true beginning of philosophy lies (as Lotze has suggested) in ethics. Others would begin with psychology, or with biology, or with mathematics, or with physics.
It is possible to begin in any one of the ways suggested; but it is a mistake to maintain the exclusive right of any one starting-point. If philosophy could have her own way, regardless of the conditions of human nature, her choice would doubtless be to begin everywhere at once, and to proceed in all directions at the same time. The human philosopher, however, must select some starting-point.
It appears to the present writer that the best way to begin the study of philosophy proper is to attempt to answer the question: How can we distinguish truth from error? No progress whatever can be made in understanding our experience without some means of distinguishing what is true from what is not true.^[1]
The name of the science that is concerned with the

1. ↑ Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, p. 293, appears to deprecate the importance of this problem.