Christian Thomas Kohl The Metaphysical Foundations of Buddhism and Modern Science

seemingly obvious, are infected with this incurable vagueness. Our right
understanding of the methods of intellectual progress depends on
keeping in mind this characteristic of our thoughts. The notions employed
in every systematic topic require enlightenment from the perspective of
every standpoint. They must be criticized from the standpoint of their
own internal consistency within that topic, and from the standpoint of
other topics of analogous generality, and from the standpoint of so-called
philosophic topics with a wider range. During the medieval epoch in
Europe, the theologians were the chief sinners in respect to dogmatic
finality. During the last three centuries, their bad preeminence in this
habit passed to the men of science. Our task is to understand how in fact
the human mind can successfully set to work for the gradual definition of
its habitual ideas. It is a step by step process, achieving no triumphs of
finality. We cannot produce that final adjustment of well-defined
generalities which constitute a complete metaphysics. But we can produce
a variety of partial systems of limited generality. The concordance of
ideas within any one such system shows the scope and virility of the basic
notions of that scheme of thought. Also the discordance of system with
system, and success of each system as a partial mode of illumination,
warns us of the limitations within which our intuitions are hedged. These
undiscovered limitations are the topics for philosophic research.
This doctrine of the limitations to which our best ideas are subject is
illustrated by that very notion of material bodies which has just been