'Two contrasts of philosophy '

**Link: ** Is progress a straight line?

The nature of philosophy can be grasped through two contrasts: with science in one hand and theology on the other. Science is the realm of empirical investigation: "what caused that?" It falls short, however, in answering: "what caused the series to exist at all?" Or "why should there be any events?" Anyone who lets the matter rest in faith and enquires no further in its validity, has in a sense, a philosophy. It is, however, a dogma, a received idea. While theology alone is not philosophy, the question of the possibility of theology is the principal philosophical question.

Studying science inevitably gives rise to the studies of logic and epistemology. If there is a temptation to say that these are unanswerable, that, in itself, is a philosophical opinion.

From: Short history of modern philosophy notes

• Roger Scruton