The purpose of this book can best be stated in the words of the author’s opening paragraph. It is “to show: first, that the social problem has been the basic concern of many of the greater philosophers; second, that an approach to the social problem through philosophy is the first condition of even a moderately successful treatment of this problem; and third, that an approach to philosophy through the social problem is indispensable to the revitalization of philosophy.” In carrying out this design the author first analyzes the philosophy of Socrates, Plato, Francis Bacon, Spinoza, and Nietzsche in so far as to indicate the social and political bearings of their ideas; and, second, outlines a scheme for facilitating the reconstruction of society under the guidance of philosophers of today.
In the first part, the social significance of the doctrines of the five selected philosophers is shown in such of their leading ideas as the following: Socrates — the identification of intelligence and virtue and the social effectiveness of the spread of intelligence; Plato — the importance of having a clear social ideal and of developing superior men, experts in foresight and coordination, to whom social reconstruction can be intrusted; Bacon — the organization of science for social application and control; Spinoza — the adaptation of the inevitably self-seeking impulses of individuals into springs of intelligent cooperation; Nietzsche — the hopelessness of an unintellectualized democracy, and the indispensableness of leaders of native and cultivated power.
In the second part the author offers, not a philosophy of his own, but a scheme whereby philosophers may cultivate and direct the application of organized intelligence to social problems. To him the philosopher of today is simply the man who can discover and define the goal of social progress and who knows “the essentials of geology and psychology, of sociology and history, of economics and politics” and who knows how to coordinate and make socially fertile these essentials. The scheme is that of a “Society for Social Research.” A resume 1 of the composition and work of this society (consisting in first instance of selected “physicians and professors” as a “nucleus of recognized intelligence”) would make the scheme appear wholly impracticable and futile. And doubtless even a full reading at first hand would not remove skepticism from most readers. For the novelty and apparent artificiality of the proposal are such that, at best, adherents could be gained only by a fuller description of details and a more cautious consideration of difficulties than the book affords.
The book can be taken, both in its historical and, especially, in its constructive parts, only as a sketch. The former is done faithfully and with some brilliance and independence of interpretation, which, with an incisive style and a flexible vocabulary, makes that part of the work interesting and suggestive for students of politics in its less mechanical aspects. It may not be ungracious to suggest that at a few points the author does his own style injustice by efforts to be superfluously “happy” through the employment of epigrams — and even puns — which seem neither illuminating nor enlivening. Moreover, the author appears to be not without prejudice in his judgment of political philosophers; and for many readers it will be difficult to understand how one who has read the Politics can say summarily that “the Stagirite spent too much of his time in card-cataloguing Plato and allowed his imagination to become suffocated with logic.”
F. W. Coker, « Review of Philosophy and the Social Problem by Will Durant, » The American Political Science Review 12, no. 2 (May 1918): 332-33.
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