Q&A: The Chazon Ish and Philosophy
The Chazon Ish and Philosophy
Question
Have a good week.
There is a gloss by the Chazon Ish on someone who wrote that up to Kant all philosophy is vanity and a striving after wind (or something like that, and I don’t remember exactly). The Chazon Ish added to this: “up to and including.”
Do you know whether the Chazon Ish opposed philosophy because it conflicted with religion, or whether in his view it was intrinsically worthless?
Do you think that the fact that every so often a new philosophical school arises is not a weakness?
Answer
I don’t know.
In science too, more and more knowledge is constantly being renewed. In my view, philosophy is like science, except that the observation is done through the eyes of the intellect. See my series of columns on what philosophy is.
I would add that the number of disputes among philosophers is smaller than people think, and even when there is a dispute it usually reflects two valid insights from two different angles (the truth includes both), or simply a misunderstanding, or just empty verbiage (different formulations of the same thing, or a non-existent topic). I hope to write a column about this later on.
Collected Letters of the Chazon Ish, vol. 2, no. 171:
“And including it —
Written next to the word ‘up to’ in the margin of the book Toledot on the Vilna Gaon, where it says there: philosophy, ‘up to’ the point that Kant joined it, was nothing but vanity and a striving after wind.”