Duhring, whilst claiming to be a philosopher of reality, in fact, rather than dealing with this real world, and its dialectical processes, runs from it into the realm of pure ideas and abstraction.
“But our philosopher of reality also had other motives for shifting the basis of all reality from the real world to the world of thought. The science of this general world schematism, of these formal basic principles of being, is indeed, precisely the foundation of Herr Dühring's philosophy. If we deduce this world schematism not from our minds, but only through our minds from the real world, if we deduce the basic principles of being from what is, we need no philosophy for this purpose, but positive knowledge of the world and of what happens in it; and what this yields is not philosophy either, but positive science. But, in that case, Herr Dühring's whole volume would be nothing but love's labour lost.” (p 45)
Philosophy, basically, seeks to answer the same question as theology or religion - “Why are we here?" Science, on the other hand, tries to answer the question - “What do we have, here?”
“... if no philosophy as such is needed any longer, then no system, not even a natural system of philosophy is needed any longer either. The recognition of the fact that all the processes of nature are systematically interconnected drives science on to prove this systematic interconnection throughout, both in general and in detail.” (p 45)
Philosophy, in trying to determine some secret to the Universe, and meaning of life, can only start from the assumption that there is some such secret and meaning, some overall plan or schema, be it consciously or unconsciously designed. Science has no such requirement, but only a requirement to understand what is, and is becoming, which itself is a function of what is. Science can never fulfil that task, and understands it cannot, because it can never uncover the whole nature of reality, as the continual discovery of smaller particles has shown, let alone the relationship between these particles and other aspects of the material world.
“If at any epoch in the development of mankind such a final, definitive system of the interconnections within the world — physical as well as mental and historical — were constructed, this would mean that the realm of human knowledge had reached its limit, and, that further historical development would be cut short from the moment when society had been brought into accord with that system, — which would be an absurdity, pure nonsense.” (p 45-6)
Even in one tiny area of such scientific endeavour, in relation to social science, after the fall of the USSR, Francis Fukuyama was rash enough to declare “The End Of History”, and the extent to which that was nonsense barely took the time for his book to hit the shops to be disproved.
A contradiction exists, therefore, that humanity must try to obtain an exhaustive knowledge of reality, but that task can never be accomplished. The task is not one simply to satisfy intellectual curiosity. Had humans not sought such knowledge, they would not have separated themselves from the animal kingdom. They would not have come to understand fire, the movement of the seasons and tides and so on, all of which were required for the survival of humans, and subsequently, their development.
“But this contradiction not only lies in the nature of the two factors — the world, and man — it is also the main lever of all intellectual advance, and constantly finds its solution, day by day, in the endless progressive development of humanity, just as for example mathematical problems find their solution in an infinite series or continued fractions. Actually, each mental image of the world system is and remains limited, objectively by the historical conditions and subjectively by its authors physical and mental constitution.” (p 46)
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